


moonshots

by phalangine



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Chefs, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Angst, Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, Hamilton - Freeform, Humor, Immortality, Immortals, M/M, Old Age, Pirates, Salons, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:51:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 37,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9381302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: a collection of ficlets, mostly snippets from larger fics that don't exist yetlatest chapter: Hawaii Five-0 AU





	1. sleeping dogs lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, h/c, fluff, modern au  
> cw: references to past underage (17) and revenge porn

> _The video was an instant success. In the first twenty-four hours alone, it got nearly five million hits, so many that, when coupled with thousands of downloads downloads, the hosting site crashed and had to purchase more server space to accommodate the flood of traffic. The uploader, UnstoppableFuck, became an internet sensation, lauded for his transcendent work with comments from all over the planet the world praising his efforts, to the point of naming him the generation’s true philanthropist._
> 
> _Said user twinkee69, “hottest vid ever holysgit u are a true hero for posting!!!” Echoing the sentiment, daddy4boiz exclaimed, “bottom has the hottest ass i’ve ever seen. Come on over to mine, & I’ll nail you so good boy you cant walk”._
> 
> _Neither user was available for comment on the evidence now emerging that_ Professor gets a lesson _features an underage Charles Xavier…_

Erik doesn’t say anything at first. He just stares at the screen, clicks through the article. Sips at his coffee.

Charles doesn’t push. He would rather not find out what Erik thinks just yet. He has never made a secret of his distaste for Charles’ reputation as a flirt, and even a less jealous man would be put off by the thought of millions of people having seen- having permanently downloaded- a video of his partner getting fucked by another man. By Sebastian Shaw of all people.

At least Erik hasn’t started shouting yet.

“I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” Charles offers tentatively when minutes drag by and Erik has yet to say anything, has yet to look away from the computer screen. He shifts on the edge of their bed, folding his legs under himself. Between the hoodie- Erik’s- and the blanket- theirs- he’s made himself a wonderful, protective shell for Erik to blast through when the fighting begins. “I just- You never brought it up, so I thought you were just being kind. Then last night, you looked so confused about the joke that guy made, which reminded me of all the times you just stared when people made cracks about it, and I realized you mustn’t know. I should have realized earlier. A year together and nothing. Of course you didn’t know. No questions, no jokes, no-”

Erik sets his mug- a horrid, gaudy thing with “World’s Best Boyfriend” spelled out in squiggly neon rainbows Charles got him for their six-month anniversary solely because Erik had looked absolutely disgusted when Charles showed it to him in the store- on the floor with a sharp bang, and Charles stops talking. He stares at Erik’s feet, so dangerously close to the mug. _Breakables off the floor, Charles,_ he always says. _If you don’t want something broken, don’t leave it where people walk._

It’s a bit more symbolic than Charles would have expected. For such a complicated man, Erik is excruciatingly direct. His mistakes are usually in mistaking Charles’ intent rather than not communicating. (“Of course I- Erik, I gave you keys. To my flat. What did you think I wanted?” “I don’t know! To hold onto them?” “I have seven pockets, two of which have zippers, love.”)

The bed dips, putting a stop to the thoughts clamoring about in Charles’ head. He feels himself tense, unsure whether this is bad or Bad, but Erik doesn’t tell him to fuck off. He doesn’t even shout. He just puts an arm around Charles’ shoulders, tugging until Charles scoots close enough for Erik to put their temples together. When he speaks, his voice is soft in a way Charles has never heard it before.

"Don’t tell me not to hit him.”

What? “What?”

“Shaw,” Erik repeats, sounding tired. “Next time we see him, I’m going to hit him. And I want you not to tell me to be a better man.”

This is… not what Charles had anticipated. He had been ready for shouting, for Erik to hate him. For another round of apartment hunting, this time alone. Not… this. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” Erik doesn’t let him move away. “That video is the reason you tried to back out of us when I brought up making one together, isn’t it?”

Charles doesn’t remember moving, but suddenly he has. He’s on his back and sinking deeper into the mattress as Erik rolls and settles on top of him, still talking softly.

“I thought you were going to try again. You got so distant, not meeting my eyes and hurrying off when I wanted you near. But I didn’t know what I’d done.”

“I’m sorry.”

Erik shakes his head. “I love you, Charles. I don’t like that there’s a video out there of you, and I could kill Shaw for putting it out there. But to think I would blame you… Is that the sort of man you think I am?” With a start, Charles realizes Erik’s eyes are wet. The tightness around his eyes isn’t anger; it’s pain. “You were a child, _neshomeleh_. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know-”

Erik cuts him off with a finger pressed to Charles’ lips. “I don’t need to. You make my heart beat,” he says roughly. “I would sooner cut it out than let you go.”

Charles doesn’t have words to convey how he feels. They all fall short of how tight his chest is with love for this brash, angry man and his soft touch. All he can do is take Erik’s face in his hands and pull him in for a kiss.

When Erik finally brings their mouths together, Charles could die of relief. Erik kisses him softly; his mind says, _I’m yours, I love you, let me keep you, let me fight him._

When Charles reaches for his face, Erik tilts his head into the touch. He breaks the kiss to draw a shaky breath, anger and peace warring to direct him. A shudder runs up his back as he puts his hand over Charles’, and the winner is clear in the shaky sigh that escapes him.

“I missed you,” Charles confesses as he pulls back. “I thought my heart would break, but I couldn’t be close without thinking about that tape- of you finding out and hating me. Pulling away seemed safer.”

Erik nods, though Charles suspects it’s mostly just to give a response. His boyfriend has already distracted himself from a problem he’s decided is solved and behind them. Charles isn’t upset about the video anymore, not in a way Erik can remedy, so he won’t focus on it. He’s thinking instead about how perfectly Charles fits against his body and how much Erik would like them to take a nap together.

“You’re very sentimental today,” Charles observes. He can’t say he objects. Exactly the opposite- he loves a cuddly Erik. It’s just strange. After all his worrying, he has nothing to show for it. None of his comebacks are necessary. None of his practice keeping calm is necessary. Erik is where he always is.

“It’s your fault. You made me soft.” Charles snorts, and Erik sighs. “You’re a walking innuendo, you know that?”

“I love you,” Charles says through the laughter that rolls through him, tugging Erik in close as he does.

Erik smiles against his cheek and says, “I love you, too,” and when he flops down, arranging himself comfortably between Charles’ legs, his mind is brimming over with love bright enough to blind a star.


	2. nepeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, modern au, fluff  
> inspired by a conversation about it being standard practice for adults in NYC to automatically help any kids that need it cross the street.

Charles loves summer. He lives for the way the warmer temperatures make his joints looser, the way the sun prickles on his skin. The flowers have opened up, the children’s spirits vibrate with anticipation, and everything becomes brighter. Happier. More alive.

The only downside. Metal handrails and direct sunlight are a powerful mixture. Somehow he still has problems remembering not to grab the rail without testing it first.

He’s waiting at an intersection, inspecting his latest blister, when a little voice pipes up.

“Excuse me?”

Glancing up, Charles sees three children- a boy and two girls, all primary school age, either mutants or products of indulgent patents going by the colorful hair- watching him. The one who spoke, the older of the girls, takes a deep breath and asks, “Can you help us cross the street, please?”

Considering the difficulty of maneuvering a wheelchair with one hand, Charles almost tells her no by reflex. Just before he does, he gets hit by a loud mental image of him holding the boy’s hand as the four make their way safely past the traffic. Charles sighs. He really has spent too much time away, if he forgot about this part of urban human decency.

The three are still looking up at him with triplet expressions of hopefulness.

He runs a tentative hand over his chair to be sure the black- who decided wheelchairs should be such drab colors?- plastic won’t burn them. Thankfully, it at least, is only hot, not burning hot. “Put your hand on the handle,” he instructs, pointing it out to them, “but be careful not to pull on me, though, all right?”

The boy nods and takes a cautious hold of Charles’ chair. The girls link arms together then join the boy, with the littlest one sandwiched between the older two.

Once they’re secure, Charles checks the street and leads the children across the street.

He feels a little like a papa duck doing it, guiding someone else’s ducklings to safety. It doesn’t bother him, though. The children clearly trust him to keep them safe, and the honor of that, of having such fragile people lean on him more than outweighs the old pang of sadness at not having any of his own.

Once they reach the other side, the children let go. They run off with a hail of, “Thanks, Mister!"s that leaves Charles smiling, especially when the little one waves at him.

His day after that passes in a happy blur.

 

**_xx_ **

 

The next day after school lets out and Charles finishes getting ready for the next one, he starts toward home only to find the same children waiting on the corner.

He nods at them in recognition, which encourages the girl to ask again if he will help them cross the street.

Charles does, and once more, they run off with loud thanks called over their shoulders.

He sees them the day after, and the one after that. Without ever discussing it, or anything, helping them cross the street becomes a ritual. He doesn’t know their names, just as they don’t know his, but it goes on for weeks, the three waiting on the street until Charles arrives to help them across.

Then the ritual changes. Only the boy and the older girl are there. Both look miserable.

"Everything all right?” Charles asks out of habit- being a primary school teacher takes a toll on more than his energy.

The children glance at each other.

“Lorna’s sick,” the boy says.

“Yeah,” agrees the girl, “and _Tate_ has to stay home with her ‘cause the doctor won’t come over and _Tate_ doesn’t like hospitals.”

From the dark cloud that washes over her thoughts, Charles suspects their father’s feelings about hospitals goes beyond not liking them.

Reaching into his pocket for his wallet, he pulls out a business card Moira gave him- why she trusts his judgment on this and not how to dress is beyond him- and scribbles a quick _Charles Xavier, La Guardia Mutant Elementary_ on the front.

“A friend of mine is a doctor,” he explains as he hands it over to the curious siblings. “Tell your _tate_ that if he calls, he should tell them Charles wants Dr. MacTaggert to make a house call, all right?”

The children dutifully say they will and repeat the message.

Card given, Charles helps them cross the street. Their goodbyes are more subdued, but he can sense the tentative hope taking root in their minds. It’s a good feeling, one that carries him home and through the latest round of guessing by his neighbor what his mutation is.

Mandatory disclosure is a bitch.

 

**_xx_ **

****

The next day, Charles is exhausted. His class was especially rowdy, and wrangling thirty of them left him in a poor mood. He disguises it behind a smile when he sees two of the children waiting. They look less grim than before, and when they catch sight of him, they break into smiles and exuberant waving.

“Mr. Charles!” the girl shouts. “Mr. Charles, it worked! Dr. Moira came, and now Lorna’s going to be okay!”

Smiling in return, Charles comes to a stop before them. “I’m very happy to hear that. And your father, he’s doing better, too?”

“He’s doing well,” a new, deeper voice says. Its tone is dry, but as Charles looks up sharply toward the street, the man standing there is giving off only friendly curiosity. “Hello, children.”

Said children shout in surprise, both shooting across the pavement to fly at the man waiting for them with open arms. He hugs them tight, laughing as they attach themselves to him, but his eyes are trained on Charles.

“So,” he says lightly, lips twitching, “you’re the man who’s been helping my brood cross the road. And now you’ve added helping my daughter when she was sick. I know your name and where you teach thanks to your card, and that your principal likes you, but I wanted to meet you myself.”

Charles feels his cheeks heat. “It was nothing. The children were upset and I could help, so I did.“

"Still, I’m grateful.” He holds out his hand. “Erik Lehnsherr.”

Charles takes the offered hand. The moment their palms touch, he gets a shock of _oh_ and _blue_ and _gorgeous_. Startled, he looks up into eyes gone wide with surprise.

 _You heard that?_ A blink. Charles wets his lips. Another blink. _You heard that._

_Sorry._

_Don’t be._

Lehnsherr clears his throat and takes back his hand. “I wanted to meet the man who helped my family.”

Ducking his head, Charles shrugs. “You’ve met him,” he says, forcibly cheerful. “They’re good kids. Most just run across the road without looking these days.”

“If it were just Pietro, that’s exactly what he’d do, but the girls don’t like it.” At Charles’ frown, Lehnsherr clarifies, “His mutation is speed.”

Over his father’s shoulder, Pietro nods proudly, and Charles has to smother a smile.

Lehnsherr shifts his weight, recapturing Charles’ attention as he does. Head bent, blush tinging his cheeks, he looks suddenly much younger when he says, “Look, I haven’t done this in a while, but would you like to get coffee sometime?”

Charles’ brain shuts off. “Pardon? Are you… asking me out?”

“I am.”

“Here.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Tell me your number, I’ll text you, and you can let me know when you have time.”

Lehnsherr- Erik does, and Charles sends off a quick hello text. The children are getting impatient by then, so Erik sends him a quick confirmation text and, legs weighed down with clingy children, makes his way across the street.

Charles watches him go. In particular, he watches the way Erik’s trousers pull tight across his round backside.

Five minutes later, Charles’ phone vibrates with a text.

_How about next Friday, two o'clock?_

Smiling to himself, Charles shoots off an agreement.


	3. spy games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, modern au  
> based on [this post](http://phalangine.tumblr.com/post/147018458141/telesilla-swingsetindecember-where-an) about a spy getting an informant confused with a regular person because the secret spycode was a pop culture reference and they just had to respond

The café has a steady stream of business when Erik arrives. He gets in line and waits like everyone else, occasionally looking around until he spots his contact. Thick glasses, tweed jacket, elbow patches, hunt and pick style typing… Unmistakable. From the way the man sporadically picks up his head and looks around nervously, Erik knows he isn’t looking at a hipster. This is Frances.

He gets his piping hot coffee and disappointing bagel, then makes his way over to the empty table next to Frances. The man glances up and gives Erik a wide-eyed look before burying his nose in his computer.

Erik frowns. Supposedly, this guy is a professional. Frost didn’t give Erik any of the details, entrusting Erik and the mission wholly to her “most reliable” source.

He waits a while, blowing on his coffee as he does, until the need to hurry his mission along gets the better of him. He doesn’t know who picked the passphrase this time or why, but he can’t say he minds- the words are catchy- as he says under his breath, _“Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man: no time to talk.”_

That gets his contact’s attention. Grinning widely, the man singsongs, _“Music loud and women warm, I’ve been kicked around since I was born.”_

“Finally,” Erik says. “I’ve been waiting for you to acknowledge me.”

Blinking stupidly, Frances echoes, “You have?”

“Of course. Why else would I be sitting here if not for you?”

“You’re very forward.”

“I’m a busy man.” Erik shrugs. “So, tell me about the mission.”

“The mission?”

“Are you just going to echo everything I say? I’m on a time-limit here.”

Frances blinks at him again, and without meaning to, Erik finds himself wondering at how blue the man’s eyes are. How red his lips are. The stubbled curve of his jaw…

Not now, Erik reminds himself sternly. And damn well not with a contact.

Rallying, Frances gives him a smile and says, “Well, it begins with a professor, name of Xavier.”

Erik nods his understanding. “Go on,” he encourages when Frances falters.

Frances does. He spends nearly half an hour telling Erik about the Columbia professor who leads a double life as a vigilante. He has to be pressed for clarification on multiple areas multiple times, which strikes Erik as amateurish, but Frances’ answers are smooth, so perhaps he’s simply unaware of how little information Erik was given ahead of time. The crux of it turns out to be that the Professor’s rival, a cruel and heartless man named Shaw who is disguised as the head of the Professor’s biology department, has him cornered, though, and it’s up to Erik to save the vigilante from Shaw.

“That sounds like the plot of a spy movie,” Erik says, suspicious, when the brief comes to an end. He’s been doing this job for years, and he isn’t in the mood to have his time wasted on pointless hazing.

“You think so?” Frances pinks attractively. “I’m just, you know, going with it.”

Going with it? That doesn’t sound like a professional to Erik. “Well, I understand. Thank you.” Throwing back the last of his luke-warm coffee, Erik gets to his feet. “Good to meet you, Frances. Stay safe.”

Frances frowns. “How did you-”

“Goodbye,” Erik tells him, pleased to have the upper hand, before he heads for the exit. He feels Frances’ eyes on him as he goes, and if he bends a little farther than he has to when he bends to throw out his cup, it’s not like it matters. This was a one-time thing.

 

_**xx** _

 

A week after his strange meeting with the man in the café, Charles is sitting on the edge of his bed in his pants and toweling off after his shower when his window flies open and a man comes flying in.

“You,” the man says, pointing aggressively at Charles, “are a liar!”

It takes him a minute to place why he knows the face glaring at him, and when he does, all Charles can do is stare up at him in surprise.

“Well?” Café Stranger asks. “Who sent you, and how did you find out about the mission?” Charles only continues gaping, which only seems to upset Café Stranger further. “I know you aren’t Frances!” the man shouts.

Out of better ideas, Charles pinches himself, but the man doesn’t disappear.

The man frowns. He did that a lot in the café, back when Charles thought he was just awkward and trying to make an impression in a quirky, if intense, way. “What are you doing?”

“Pinching myself.”

“Why?”

“To wake up.”

“You aren’t asleep.”

“No, but a man can hope.”

Oddly, that seems to make his intruder tense up. “How did you know the passphrase?”

“What passphrase?” Charles asks.

Eyes narrowing, the man quotes, _“Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man: no time to talk.”_

Charles rolls his eyes. “I’m thirty-four years old. I know the Bee Gees.”

“The who?”

“No, the Bee Gees.” The man continues to stare at Charles in confusion, so Charles sings, _“Music loud and women warm, I’ve been kicked around since I was born.”_

“Yes, that! How did you know that?”

Smiling- if he’s going to die, which might happen, why not enjoy the irony?- Charles continues, “And now it’s all right. It’s okay. And you may look the other way. We can try to understand the New York Times’ effect on man.”

The man glances away from Charles toward his own feet, a look of embarrassment shifting his features before he schools his expression back into neutrality. “It’s a song?”

Charles nods, too busy grooving to the song to care about weird men breaking into his apartment and not knowing _Stayin’ Alive_. “Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother, you’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’, and we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.”

“But-”

The best part is coming, and Charles is just tired enough from staying up reading essays to skip to it. “Ha ha ha ha, stayin’ aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive,” he  jams, throwing his head back and his arms out, belting the word with all the energy it deserves.

Stranger winces and steps back. “You aren’t an enemy operative, are you?”

“Just a genetics professor, I’m afraid.”

“At Columbia?”

“Bingo.”

Heaving a sigh, Stranger runs a hand through his hair.

 _It’s a shame he’s batshit,_ Charles thinks to himself, because the man is not hard on the eyes.

“So you tricked me by accident.”

“Oops?”

“What did you think I meant when I asked about the mission?”

“I thought you were hitting on me.”

“Really?” Brows shooting up, Stranger throws Charles a look that suggests Charles is the weird one.

Scowling Charles snaps, “Oh, I’m sorry. Who here bought the story he himself suggested sounded like the plot of an action film?”

Any rebuttal Stranger might have had gets cut off when Charles’ phone rings. “I’ll get that,” he says, transitioning smoothly from mortified to capable as he crosses the room and effortlessly digs Charles’ cell phone out from under last night’s grading. He’s trotting back over to Charles, suddenly strangely helpful, when he glances down at it and freezes. He stares at the screen for a long moment before his head snaps up and he asks, voice hard, “This man- Sebastian Shaw, he is the head of your department?”

“Yes?”

Handing the phone over, Stranger’s expressing turns grim. “You’ll need a new one by tomorrow.”

Then he’s spinning on his heel and launching himself back out the window he came roaring in, easily gliding through.

“What,” Charles asks the empty room, “the hell just happened?”

 

_**xx** _

 

Two weeks later, Charles is grading papers at his usual table when a voice sings, “Well now, I get low and I get high, and if I can’t get either, I really try.”

Caught between horror and amusement, Charles goes for the latter. “Got the wings of heaven on my shoes,” he sings back. “I’m a dancin’ man, and I just can’t lose.”

Stranger huffs a laugh and drops into the chair opposite Charles. “Like your new department head any better than the last one?”

“I don’t want to know what you did to Shaw, do I?”

“No.”

“Can I at least have a name? I can’t keep calling you stranger.”

Stranger thinks about it for a while, idly swirling his cup and blowing on it as he considers Charles’ request. After enough time passes that Charles starts to wonder if he somehow accidentally broke the man, he says, “Erik.”

“That’s… surprisingly normal.”

Erik rolls his eyes. “My parents were normal.”

“Were?”

“Were.”

“Ah.” That either explains a lot, or nothing. “My dad’s dead, for what it’s worth.”

“Not your mother?”

Charles shrugs. “Nah.”

Seemingly accepting this, Erik sits back in his seat. “I’m glad you aren’t an enemy operative,” he offers. “Killing you would have been unfortunate.”

Charles searches Erik’s face for a hint of whether he’s being made fun of or not and only comes up blank. Just to be safe, he says, “I’m glad I’m not one, too, then.”

They lapse into silence after that, and following a long period of awkwardly trying not to stare at Erik as the man ponders his empty cup, Charles goes back to grading. The next time he looks up, Erik is gone. There’s no note, but he gets the feeling this won’t be the last time he sees the man.

 

_**xx** _

“-so I threw him out the window.”

“What happened to the new, sympathetic Erik?” Charles asks without looking up. “I thought you weren’t going to cause any needless carnage anymore.”

“He died.”

“I didn’t see the obituary.”

Erik hesitates for a moment before he says, “It only ran in Germany.”

And there, at last, is another clue. They’ve been playing this game for nearly a year now. Erik stops by when he has the time and meets Charles here for coffee and an opportunity to unwind. They play it like a game of one-upmanship, each trying to come up with a more ludicrous story than the other, but in reality, Charles is just having a laugh while Erik decompresses from his many brushes with death. Through carefully considered questions, Charles has also been learning snippets about Erik’s life.

So far, including today’s tidbit he’s learned: Erik speaks Russian and Spanish, he used to love chocolate before an incident in his adolescence put him off it, he’s lapsed Jewish, and, apparently, he has ties to Germany.

Charles hasn’t had so much fun in a long time, and so long as he doesn’t think too hard about Erik’s exploits- which he suspects are heavily sanitized- he enjoys their chats and misses them during the stretches of time when Erik is out doing spy things.

“Are you listening, Charles?”

“Yes, darling,” Charles assures him as he absently corrects a model of meiosis. “Your handler is a pain in the backside. My TA is currently involved in a love triangle and taking it out on me. But please, I’m sure your suffering is worse.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re being facetious?”

“Because you’re a fantastic spy?”

Snorting, Erik rolls his eyes. “You have no idea how lucky you are that I like you, you know that?”

“Not even a little bit.” Squinting at the messy handwriting on the figure labels- someone didn’t study enough and is trying to cover it up with a little creative letter smushing- Charles sighs and momentarily gives into the existential angst that accompanies teaching. “Erik?”

“Yes, Charles?”

“Would you assassinate someone for me?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Who and why?”

“A student, and he’s trying to kill me.”

One brow creeping up his forehead, Erik takes the paper from Charles, glances at the section in question and quickly returns it with a look of distaste.

“What’s wrong?” Charles chortles, accepting the papers back. “Not a fan of cell sex?”

“I’m not getting off on it, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“How vanilla of you. I, for one, am a big fan of sexual reproduction. It really keeps the species going.”

“Kinky,” Erik replies blandly. There’s a twitch of his lips that follows, though, which means he’s amused and trying, poorly, to hide it.

Rather than point it out, Charles accepts his victory and settles in to watch as Erik recounts his latest encounter with lasers as security and how disappointed he was in them. At one point, Erik gets up and disappears for a while, which Charles suspects means the man has to leave, but Erik returns with a muffin in one hand, a bottle of orange juice in the other, and a deliberately tolerant expression on his face as he plops his haul into Charles’ hands.

“You skipped breakfast again,” he explains. “Eat before you get sick.”

Embarrassed, Charles makes to do just that- now that Erik mentions it, he is feeling peckish- only for it to hit him that Erik must have been watching him for signs that Charles wasn’t feeling well. More to the point, he must have spent time figuring out what the signs specific to Charles are and what he likes to eat when he isn’t feeling well. A sugary mess of a food is exactly what Charles would have chosen for himself.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _Oh, no._

“Charles?” Erik pauses in the middle of whatever he was saying, forehead wrinkling in concern. “Are you all right?”

Forcing a smile, Charles nods quickly. “I’m fine, my friend. Couldn’t be better.”


	4. kallistē

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, vague middle ages au where charles is a composer for the court and erik is a poet

When he was a child, Erik fell asleep to the sound of his parents speaking lowly. He never knew what they were saying, only took comfort in the familiar sounds of their voices lulling him to sleep. Now he dozes to the sound of a quill scratching, a man humming. They are the sounds of Charles composing; they comfort Erik, whether they come furiously, as when Charles is struck with inspiration, or studiously, as when Charles is revising. He never knows what inspires the flashes of genius that overtake his friend, but when they come, it never fails to awe him to see Charles pluck the notes from his mind and transcribe them onto paper.

 _What is it this time?_ Erik wonders. _Plainsong? A motet?_ He keeps his questions silent. It would not do to disrupt his friend.

“I can feel you thinking.”

So much for not disrupting. “How is it coming?” Erik asks, looking up from his book.

Charles gives him a crooked smile and shakes his head. “It’s coming along well. Too well, I’m afraid.”

“Surely there is no such thing as that.”

“Would that there weren’t.” Setting aside his score, Charles gestures at Erik’s lap. “And you, my friend? How goes the poetry?”

Erik sighs. “Terribly. I hate writing to praise silly people for their temporal ‘graces’. What good is there in praising a woman’s breast? What virtue lies in telling a brave man he is so? I should have listened to my father and become a smith.”

“But then your mother would have had her heart broken,” Charles reminds him kindly. “Your gift would have been squandered, and, most importantly, we would never have met. Surely I am worth a few silly poems.”

Erik will never admit it to Charles, but their friendship is all that makes court bearable- and more. He could write a thousand frivolous poems and still have the heart to write a thousand more, so long as Charles remained at his side. In all his years of wandering, he never knew peace like that which he finds in Charles’ company. It is a strange peace, one found in the angry clash of a humanist and a rationalist, but it is deeper, more enduring, than any other he has known.

Shaking his head, he puts away his own work. “Despite your fortifying presence-” Charles snorts loudly, “- I am in need of fresh air if I am to finish this… ode to woman. I doubt it will win its commissioner his lady’s heart, but I must do all I can to make it so. Will you join me for a ride? It’s early afternoon yet.”

“Would that I could. I must practice with the chorus the newest lyrics, I’m afraid. You’ll give Avalon an apple for me, though, won’t you?”

Erik smiles as he gets to his feet. “I sometimes think you like my horse more than you like me.”

Charles gives him an exaggerated gesture of thoughtfulness that quickly dissolves into a roll of his eyes and, once Erik has nearly made his way out of Charles’ chambers, a call for Erik to give his horse Charles’ love.

Heart hammering guiltily at the thought of bearing Charles’ love, even to give it to a horse, Erik turns to give his friend an ironic bow, which makes Charles laugh and call him something rude.

In the stables, Erik brushes his horse quickly, saddles him even quicker. “You are a handsome beast, aren’t you? Charles sends his love, as he always does,” he murmurs as he runs a hand down the horse’s neck. Sorrel, with tall stockings up his knees, the gelding truly is a handsome creature, and he maintains a true stallion’s temperament.

Avalon was a gift from Charles the first month of Erik’s residence at court.

“Only just declared fit for riding,” Charles told him proudly. “Still a touch skittish of the rider, though. I thought perhaps you would appreciate an open, wild creature. A compatriot of sorts, no? He will give you the stimulus courtiers fail to provide no doubt.”

From another, Erik would have taken offense. To be compared to an animal- he is no castrated beast to be sat upon. From Charles, Erik had been willing to accept the comparison- if not without a rejoinder that unlike his gift, Erik was still able to go riding. It made Charles turn red, which was a pleasant reversal of their roles.

Swinging into the saddle easily, Erik directs Avalon toward the fields. He lets his thoughts wander as they go, and as they so often do, they turn to Charles.

His friend’s injury and the sickness that nearly took him from this life are foremost in Erik’s mind.

The former is Erik’s fault. Charles was leaning out the window to argue with Erik about some triviality or another when the sickness took hold. The symptoms strike fast, and one moment Erik was taunting Charles about being a faint-hearted lady scared of heights, while the next, his friend was tumbling out the window and hitting the ground hard. Erik was the first to reach him where he lay, crumpled, on the stones. It was not his crushed legs that gave the physicians fear- it was the cause of the fall, the sweating sickness, that panicked them.

Yet Charles survived. He was sick for what felt like an eternity, but in the end, unlike so many victims, Charles emerged weakened but alive. He was desperate to return to his work, and with some work fashioning a chair with wheels to carry him, he grew strong enough to endure it.

His good humor did not, as Erik had feared, wilt in the heat of the fever or the weight of his irreparable legs. The first words he said to Erik were, “Write me a poem so I might remind the women of the court that there is more than one way a man might pleasure a woman. Make it as bawdy as you dare, my friend!” He still laughs over Erik’s observations of the incomprehensible upper classes. He flirts with any woman willing to entertain him- a number that grows every day as Charles slowly manages to convince women to let him prove his manliness and discharges them the next morning, well-satisfied with the time spent in his bed.

Charles Xavier is a singularly strange man. Erik supposes it has to do with the Portuguese blood. They seem an… energetic, convivial people.

But who knows? Erik thought himself among good people in his native Germany before Luther came to prominence. Men who were doubtful of Erik but tolerant of him turned violent. A single man took their suspicions and stoked them into blaze of hatred so vile it forced Erik from his home. It brought Erik to England in search of safety. The Church here is neither radical Protestant nor Catholic. He had hoped that would give him room to breathe. To be safe.

How naïve he was. The King’s favor gives him protection, but that is fleeting. Everyone knows Erik is a Jew. It is in his blood, and for all the comfort that gives him, it puts him in danger as well.

“Mr. Lehnsherr?” a woman’s voice calls. “Mr. Lehnsherr!”

Dragged out of his thoughts, Erik looks up to find the familiar face of Moira MacTaggert leaning out of her carriage.

“Mistress MacTaggert,” he calls in greeting, bowing as he guides Avalon over. Lady Moira is one of the few friends Charles keeps who is tolerable. If Charles ever marries, Erik suspects it will be to her. “How are you?”

“I am well, thank you. I’m just on my way to see Charles. Any idea where he is?”

“With the chorus, I suspect. He told me they had to practice.”

“Ah, the new piece is giving them trouble? It warms my Scottish heart.”

Lady Moira gives him a knowing smile- their blood ensures they are both outcasts here- then dips her head and bids him goodbye, unless he wishes to ride back with her?

Having gotten rid of the pent up energy from earlier, Erik nods and encourages Avalon to fall in beside the carriage.

Smiling widely, Lady Moira gestures him closer and asks in a knowing tone, “How is our dear composer? Offended any husbands lately?”

Erik sighs, and the lady lets out a bark of a laugh that only quiets when Erik threatens to withhold details if she doesn’t calm herself.

As he passes on the story of Charles getting caught with a certain lady of significant standing, he can’t help but remember the sight- he was with the husband at the time, the two of them headed to Erik’s chambers to discuss commissioning a poem. Deliberately or not, Charles was one door off from his own, and Erik and the husband walked not into Erik’s usually tidy room but into a cuckolding. Erik recalls the sweat-shiny curves of Charles’ powerful arms, made large from pushing himself around. The dark hair on his chest tapered over his flexing belly until it widened between his legs, where it was visible when the woman was risen up on her knees and hidden when she let herself be impaled down on it.

They didn’t stop immediately, though Charles was looking right at Erik, and Erik returned the look, transfixed by the sight of Charles’ red, open lips.

“Mr. Lehnsherr? Are you all right?”

Erik shakes himself. “Of course. I was lost in memory. We’ll be at the castle soon.”

His words do not convince her, but she does not push. It is one of her virtues.

They part ways at the stables but not before Moira reaches up to kiss Erik’s cheek. “You can’t keep punishing yourself for the past,” she tells him softly. “Charles bears you no grudge. You do him a disservice by ignoring that.”

“Charles is too forgiving.”

“He is not.” Moira shakes her head. “Be vigilant, Mr. Lehnsherr, lest you become so blinded by imagined guilt that you overlook the real good that could be yours, if you only let it.”

Cryptic. “As you say, my lady.”

“You have no idea what I’m telling you, do you? Typical man.” She pats his shoulder anyway before she turns and makes her way toward the castle and Charles.

Erik instead takes Avalon away and sets himself to the calming, repetitive task of unpacking and brushing his horse down. When he finishes, he returns Avalon to his paddock and heads toward the castle, destined for his room.

There, he is forced to confront the work he has been avoiding.

Erik cannot think of how to charm a woman. He has never been good with them. They seem a strange and unreadable bunch, complex in ways he does not care to try comprehending. He can compliment them and make them smile, but they do not wish to stay with him more than a night. He is only ever glad of it; he would not like to keep a woman, if one ever offered herself to him for keeping.

Yet he must imagine himself wanting it if he is to eat and keep his good name.

Perhaps a metaphor? Rather than usual honest style, he could talk of something else, something a woman would be flattered by, that could stand for a woman, but what?

He casts about in frustration. What do women like?

Jewels. Yes, they like those.

But the metaphor is… poor.

What about flowers?

Too trite.

But maybe…

_Would that the bird who so delicately rests on my palm could answer sweetly my behest-_

No, that won’t do. It has to convey yearning, to express the weariness and desperation of a soul’s desire as yet unanswered. It has to be honest- blunt without chasing offense.

The bird is not delicate. No, it is wild and glowing with vitality.

It is Charles. If Erik were ever to confess his true affections to Charles, how would he do so?

_Would that the sweet-voiced bird who soars through its Maker’s violent gusts would find in me a refuge._

Closer now. He need only refine and expand the sentiment…

He is working on yet another draft when a knock disturbs his silence.

“Erik, my friend, are you in there?”

Blinking against the unexpected dark, Erik straightens his spine with an uncomfortable pop. “Yes, Charles, I’m here,” he calls. “Come in before you bother the entire hall.”

A few seconds later, Charles manages to roll into the room. He looks rumpled and exhausted; even his usually untamed waves of hair flop lifelessly over his forehead. “My friend, you are a treat for my weary eyes.”

Erik lifts a single brow.

“You are!” Charles protests. “I do not have to teach you to sing or to play, so you cannot disappoint me.”

“How high your expectations, Charles. Could any other man meet them?”

“None.” Charles laughs and transfers himself to Erik’s bed. He looks good there. He is always comfortable and happy, save when he comes to Erik’s chambers at the end of a day. Then he is full of complaints and anger and remarks that border on heretical. He is fiery, passionate- a true musician, a sensual creature of humor and turmoil. Not at all the gentle soul whose smiles border on beatific, nor the sexless teacher.

It is a welcome change.

“So, my dear poet,” Charles asks cheerfully, letting out a groans as he leans back spread-eagled on the bed, “what work are you working on now?”

“The same composition as before,” Erik admits. “I find myself struggling to convey a suitor’s ardent will without becoming too intense for a woman’s liking.”

“Read me what you have, then, and I will help you.”

“I will not.”

“Erik, please. See sense. I am adept at conversing with the fairer sex- they truly aren’t so mysterious as you make them out to be- and would gladly lend a hand to a friend in need of it. You have helped me finish more than one piece in our time together; consider this a way to lessen my debt.”

As he has a time limit and truly has not made significant progress in his revisions, Erik is forced to concede that Charles’ help might be exactly what he needs. Imagined debt or no, the man does have an uncanny way with women.

“I will not endure your teasing,” he warns. “Be brutally honest with me, but do not mock me just because I do not… appeal to women, as you do.”

Charles’ eyes soften. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Now come. Let me hear what our great poet has written.”

As he reads out the words and witnesses the effect they have on his friend, Erik finally hears how the poem should sound. The suggestions Charles makes have already been illuminated in Erik’s mind, though he listens to them anyway. He always listens when Charles speaks.

“You seem to have found your way,” Charles remarks as Erik cuts out the drivel that washes third stanza. “I’ll let you be in peace, but do please come for supper. There are dignitaries tonight, and I do not wish to be alone in the corner.”

Grunting his acknowledgement, Erik dutifully echoes, “Supper, dignitaries, corner. Goodbye, Charles.”

The chair creaks as Charles scoots himself onto it. In the doorway, he stops and says, “Goodbye, Erik. Don’t make me come back for you.”

Erik does remember to go to the hall on his own. He is late, but Charles is, as warned, sitting alone in a corner. Lit by firelight, expression soft with longing as he watches the dancers, he makes the air thin Erik’s lungs. There are two plates on his lap, one nearly empty and the other hardly touched.

Drawing a fortifying breath, Erik prepares himself for another agonizing evening of watching his handsome friend be snubbed by lesser souls.

Erik shall not be among them.

“Charles!” he shouts, allowing his true delight to shine through. “Sorry I’m late, old friend. I see you’ve started without me!”

Charles splutters in indignation, but Erik is soon forgiven, and the two sit comfortably close and watch the ladies and gentlemen of the court swirl around each other all evening and well into the night.


	5. three legs in the evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, old!verse, retirement home au  
> an excerpt from a longer fic i will someday actually finish writing

In deference to the firm grip winter has on New York, Erik has resolved to make today the day he changes his morning walk to a morning swim. Dr. Summers has been suggesting he try the water for weeks, insisting it will be better for his joints. Erik doesn’t particularly care for Scott, though, and he knows the feeling is mutual. Had Jean not taken it upon herself to support the man’s whining pleas that Erik stop wandering around the grounds, Erik may well have continued ignoring the overgrown toddler.

 _What a mistake that would have been_ , he thinks, taking in the train wreck before him. If he hadn’t come down here, he would have missed the sight of Howlett trying to chase down a man on a floating lounger. The orderly is knelt at the very edge of the pool, growling and batting furiously at the water in a pitiful attempt at either pulling the rogue fogey- who is currently reclining in his floral water lounger with all the dignity of a king on his throne, despite his tragic Hawaiian print swim trunks, ridiculous outdated shutter sunglasses, and the miniature floaties on his arms and legs- closer or splashing him across the pool.

It takes Erik a moment to realize why Howlett hasn’t just gotten in, but when he does, Erik lets out a bark of laughter so loud he startles himself.

“Oh, dear. Is your metal skeleton not water-safe?”

The orderly pauses long enough to throw a glare over his shoulder at Erik but says nothing, only glares.

Erik’s compatriot on the lounger doesn’t visibly react, but Erik senses the strange, tell-tale _give_ of his mind around a telepathic finger.

 _That was graphic,_ observes a mild voice. _And patently untrue- you need far less lube to penetrate a man’s mind._ The man- _Charles Xavier, at your service_ \- sends him an exaggerated wink from the pool. It defies logic by making him look even more ridiculous.

_I’ll have you know no fewer than four members of the staff have called me dashing._

Snorting, Erik looks up from the pink obscenities on Xavier’s arms and into the face of a man with the brightest smile he has ever seen.

 _You’re still bald,_ Erik thinks waspishly.

For some reason, that only makes the man grin harder. _Oh, dear,_ he says delightedly as he pulls himself more upright with his elbows. _You’re a grouchy old codger, aren’t you?_

Erik is just beginning to wonder whether he accidentally made a friend when Howlett mutters, “Fuck it,” and reaches for the floater with one of his paws, only to lose his balance and, with a shout of surprise, go tumbling into the water, arms flailing. Arms, Erik recalls just in time, that have ridiculous metal claws.

There is a pop and a disappointed, “Logan Howlett!” Then Xavier, buoyed up by his many floaties, is disentangling himself from the wreckage of the lounger and chortling with glee. “Erik, my friend,” he calls, “do come in! The water’s great.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Erik does.


	6. magnesia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, canon au for jxmesmcavoy who had this idea in chat for a universe where charles doesn’t meet raven and thinks he’s insane until he meets erik.  
> warnings for (comics) canon Markos and Charles’ loose use of terms for what he perceives as madness

In hindsight, the first time Charles uses his gift is the day before his step-father’s birthday. Cook is working hard, running around in a rush to get everything just right, and at one point, Charles hears her voice say, “Oh, and I must get sugar. Must remember to send Mr. Hall for more sugar.” It is only natural, then, for him to ask her after dinner if she has all the sugar she needs. She doesn’t, as it happens, and though she swats him away kindly enough, he hears her mutter, “When did I tell him I needed sugar?”

Cook is getting old, though- she is nearly fifty- so Charles chalks it up to the way people’s minds get fuzzy as they age.

He never thinks to question why he always seems to know what people need, or why, when he is stuck on a problem on a test, all he has to do is think about his teacher talking him through it, and suddenly he cab see the answer perfectly. He doesn’t wonder that he always knows what gifts to give the kids who invite him to their parties- or how he knows, without a doubt, that that is the reason they invite him. He never makes any connections between Cain’s loathing of him and the way Kurt sometimes stops in the middle of shouting at him and just walks away.

Then, just after his half birthday before he turns ten, he tries to talk to the girl he has a crush on.

It is a regular school day, and Susie is dressed in a pretty pink dress. With no friends to help him, it falls to Charles to go up to her alone during lunch and ask, as confidently as he knows how, if he can sit with her.

Susie’s eyes go wide.

Her friends’ eyes narrow.

Charles hears them all at once say, _“No.”_

“Oh,” Charles says, feeling his face heat. “Okay. I’ll, um, I’ll see you in class.”

All the girls immediately begin to titter, and even though he feels horrible and stupid and embarrassed, Charles just wants to laugh. What was he thinking, asking to sit with the girls! Susie doesn’t even like him- she only went to his birthday party because her mother made her!

Stopping still, heart pounding in his ears, Charles turns back to the table and the line of girls watching him with little smiles.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Charles tells them quietly.

“What wasn’t?” Emily asks, her face scrunched up like it gets in English when she doesn’t understand a question.

Charles faces her without flinching. He’s better at English than she is. “I didn’t make Susie come to my party. It’s not my fault her mom made her.”

 _“Everybody’s mom makes them go,”_ Emily says. And Sally. And Beth. And Sandy and Lisa and Cassie and Susie…

“Fine!” Charles snaps. His hands shake around his lunch box. “I won’t invite you, so they can’t make you go!”

Everyone is staring at him. Their teacher is sickly white, and as the room fills with people asking what is wrong with him and crowing about how they always knew he was weird, Charles gets suddenly, horribly sick down the front of his clothes before mercifully blacking out.

His mother isn’t happy. Neither is Kurt. They ask what got into him. Maybe it was a one-time thing, a hallucination from the sickness that got him excused from school early. They ask the doctor if it’s polio, but the man shakes his head.

“No fever, his body is in good strength and of normal size, and nausea is a common symptom of many childhood diseases. Hearing voices is concerning, but he’s probably just dehydrated. Let him rest for the day. He should be fine.”

Charles spends the rest of the day sipping on the cola Cook brings him and wishing he didn’t have to go back to school.

By the time Charles is ten, he knows something is wrong with him. He’s never alone. Things can never be quiet unless he hides from the voices in his head- _“Charles,”_ they call, _“Charles, come here!”_ getting louder and louder until they’re screaming, _“BOY, WHERE ARE YOU?”_ and his step-father is throwing open the closet door.

The voices are a secret. They don’t want him to do anything bad. He just has to listen to them, and he will be fine.

His classmates know, though. Maybe not everything, but hey know enough. None of them even pretends to be his friend. They avoid being near him, and they replace his name with awful words that mean nothing next to the things the voices tell him.

That teacher warranties divorce her husband. One of their maids tried to kill herself before she came to work for them, and she thinks she might try again. (Charles is always extra polite to her. Maybe, if he asks how she is often enough, she won’t want to die anymore. He is fourteen when she proves him wrong.) Cook lives in constant pain. Mr. Hall hates Charles’ step-father; he tolerates Charles and his mother but wishes nothing good on the Markos.

A man in the street sees a pretty woman and thinks something so vile, Charles gives himself a concussion from hitting himself on the head trying to get rid of the thought.

A woman cowers away from him, and even though he is sixteen and not very big, Charles sees himself a giant in her eyes.

When he turns eighteen, he gets brave and finds an antidote to the voices.

Alcohol makes everything blur together. The voices run together until they buzz like a radio in need of tuning. He takes to drinking a little bit whenever he can. His work at Harvard and Oxford passes in a comforting cocoon of alcohol and, when the voices get loud enough to make him sick, drugs. He never uses them himself- he tried once, but the acid made the madness grow instead of shrink- but instead spends time with those who do. Cocaine is a difficult mixture; the thoughts whirl nauseatingly fast but speed the user toward positivity. Heroin lulls him to sleep. Marijuana tends to make him relax and enjoy the simple things like the sensation of the man sitting next to him enjoying the softness of his clothes.

He learns, gradually, that he can do more than hear voices- he overhears thoughts, he discovered at fifteen, and at twenty-four, he decides to experiment, looking to scratch the itch at the base of his skull that reminds him of Kurt walking away when Charles got scared and begged God to save him. It wasn’t Jesus who ushered Kurt away. It was Charles.

When he gets bored in class, he slips into a neighboring mind and takes stock of that person. This one is hungry. That one wants to sleep. These two are remembering what they did together the night before.

Changing minds makes him physically sick. Something in the way he has to break them before he can remake them, even for the slightest of alterations, haunts him. He has fundamentally changed the course of a life. He is a god. It takes time for him to accept that, a long time.

Having friends is impossible. The might find out and have him locked up. He met a man who was in an asylum once; the man’s mind was so ragged, Charles fled from him, terrified that the corruption might spread to his own mind. He was only fifteen then, still just a boy, but he knew. The madness is his secret. Even when he thinks he might want to tell someone, he knows better. It’s a simple, human urge. He can overcome it.

It’s lonely, but he finds insanity is the cure to the isolation it causes. He can always sit down somewhere and let his consciousness roam. No one can stop him. No one can recognize that the student sunning himself on the beach is actually feeling himself cut through the water in a bigger, stronger body.

Charles is celebrating his successful defense of his thesis when he meets Moira MacTaggert. What her mind shows him is impossible, but she has no trace of madness in her thoughts. So he lets her bring him to the CIA, lets her disguise him as an informant on a man called Sebastian Shaw, and follows her to Miami where they board a Coat Guard ship chasing down a yacht carrying MacTaggert’s quarry.

It’s there, off the coast of Florida, that Charles feels it.

Desperation and resolution is bundled together with blood lust, a singular determination that _there must be justice_ in a mind unlike any Charles has ever touched. He already felt one like diamonds that somehow kept him from disabling Shaw, but this-

It’s the squeal of barbed wire being yanked out of shape, the heat of a barrel that’s just propelled a bullet home, it’s blood from a bitten cheek, an anchor flying through the air- it’s one, tiny man trying to hold back a submarine.

Charles doesn’t think about diving off the side of the ship. He only feels a mind unlike any he’s ever felt and knows instinctively that he has to intervene. He cannot let this man die. He cannot let the ache of loneliness pounding away in this man’s chest go unsoothed.

So he jumps.

The water is cold, but he scarcely feels it. His insanity- his mutation- guides him inexorably down toward his destination.

He wraps his arms around the man’s struggling body, irrelevantly notes that this man is thin, the jut of his ribs not smoothed out by flesh.

This close together, closer than Charles has intentionally been to another person in years, with adrenaline pounding through them both, Charles can’t find his usual finesse. When he reaches for the man’s mind, he gets everything.

“Eins. Zwei. Drei."

_Alts iz gut._

_The sting of a needle, his great power absent and unable to break._

_Years of hunger twisting in his belly._

_Stealing, running, and dragging the dead just to stay alive._

_Gold, soft and malleable, melted from stolen prizes._

_A knife._

_"If anyone strikes someone a fatal blow with an iron object, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death.”_

Their lungs burn as Charles tries to sooth him. He barely knows what he’s saying, only cares that this man, whose mind is bright and _sane_ despite the horrors that fill it, survives.

He gets pushed away the moment they surface, but that’s fine. Erik is still here, is blowing out water from his mouth and gasping questions. He’s alive. His mind is clear, his interest overcoming his alarm.

 _Who are you?_ he wonders. _How did you do that? What do you want?_

 _You,_ Charles thinks, though the thought stays firmly in his own head. If Erik isn’t mad, maybe Charles isn’t either. Maybe his thesis really is more than the trifling bit of whimsy his professors wrote it off as. Maybe, as he promises Erik, Charles isn’t alone either.

It’s too much to contemplate now. Charles clothes are soaked and heavy, Erik is too skittish to make the usual overtures of friendship yet, and Charles has been insane longer than he ever was not. Just the thought that perhaps his reality wasn’t wrong all along makes him queasy.

_If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it._

But what if you don’t know which is the case?

As they climb back aboard the Coast Guard ship and an angry Moira, Erik does something odd. He takes a step closer to Charles. And another. Then, eyes locked with Charles’, he says, _Tell me about your tricks._

For the first time in his life, Charles finds himself thinking that nothing would make him happier.


	7. hanging up the spandex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, modern au, excerpt from a larger fic  
> inspired by lewis black, jon stewart, and js’ retirement from the daily show

> **_HOST RETIRES, TV LOSES ICONIC FIGURE_ **
> 
> _Today saw the final episode of the iconic show_ The Daily Mutant _that would be headed by its longtime host, Erik Lehnsherr. Better known to the show’s audience as Magneto, Lehnsherr took over a decade and a half ago from the previous host following an international scandal that linked Sebastian Shaw to prominent racial hate groups and forced Comedy Centric into the uncomfortable position of choosing to end the only by-mutants-for-mutants show on air and face the inevitable backlash or find someone could match the charisma Shaw had initially brought and resuscitate the flagging show._
> 
> _Enter Erik Lehnsherr, a relative unknown, whose application (which has since been leaked to the internet) must have been a dream come true and a nightmare._
> 
> _Jewish, openly bisexual, and a loud voice in the fight for mutant rights, Lehnsherr was either going to be the breath of fresh air_ TDM _needed or a new captain to head the_ Titanic _into the depths. As the first six months made clear, Lehnsherr was exactly the right choice._
> 
> _Ratings climbed as the new helmsman filled the late night circuit with cutting remarks aimed at the right, left, and nonpartisan movements alike. The half hour show quickly garnered a reputation for its deft juxtaposition of frivolity and severity. Lehnsherr’s impromptu Yiddish lessons were a fan favorite, the audience never knowing what Lehnsherr would decide to share. Would the anchor pass on something like his dead-pan explanation of the need for three words for “enema?” Or would they get a rare glimpse the man’s softer side, like his explanation of the significance of the word “neshomeleh”? Lehnsherr’s way of balancing frustration at having to explain Jewish holidays with gentle ribbing at some of the quirkier, inexplicably specific rules garnered appreciation from all religions._
> 
> _“You can see he knows what he’s talking about,” said one contributor on aish.com. “He walks a fine line, and there certainly have been jokes I felt crossed the line. But I’ve enjoyed seeing a proud Jew on TV.”_

Charles watches Erik finish reading the article with barely contained amusement. He knows it drives Erik nuts, but he can’t help it. He married a man off the TV. Granted, they knew each other before _TDM_ , and Charles at least was top over teakettle for the crotchety bastard nearly from the start, but the point stands. Charles Xavier, old fart and geek extraordinaire, caught himself a man who has been on the cover of _GQ_ and topped a number of handsomest man in the world lists.

“I don’t get it,” Erik says at last, not looking up from the squint he has leveled at the tablet screen.

“Don’t get what, darling?”

“This.” Erik waves at the offending article. “Why do they care?”

He genuinely doesn’t see it. Charles doesn’t need to look know Erik is as confused by the public’s adoration of him now as he was when the show first took off. It’s a bit sweet, really, if Charles doesn’t think too hard about why. Erik has spent so long seeing only pain, he hardly knows what to do with kindness.

That is beginning to change, though. Slowly, Erik is unwinding from the furious ball of unhappy energy Charles fished out of a pool in Miami. Just yesterday he found his husband just standing outside, looking around with a peaceful smile.

“It’s because you’re pretty,” Charles explains, waiting for Erik to look up and glower at him. “And you made a lot of people happy.”

“Happy?” Erik echoes, nose wrinkling

“Well, maybe not _happy_ , but you made them laugh, love. You gave them hope. That’s a powerful thing.”

Rather than protest as Charles had expected, Erik shakes his head, expression softening. He reaches out and takes Charles’ hand in his. “You don’t need to persuade me,” he tells him gently. “I am familiar with the strength of that particular emotion.”

 _Oh, Erik._ Charles can’t miss the way Erik’s mind tugs at his.

 _I mean this,_ it promises. _I am not the man I was. I know where I belong. I’m ready now. We can be happy. Let me make you happy._

 _I don’t know what to do when you get like this,_ Charles tells him. Laying his free hand over Erik’s, he inclines his head toward him, the better to kiss his husband’s cheek. _But thank you._

Erik grins, an expression that’s been becoming delightfully more frequent, and moves in to press a quick kiss to the corner of Charles’ mouth.

“I love you,” he rumbles, “even though you’re a sentimental old fool.”

Snorting- look who’s talking- Charles reluctantly pulls back. “You should get going. Your date will be arriving shortly, and you haven’t showered yet.” Reaching up, he brushes his fingers through Erik’s hair and doesn’t fight a smile at the spray of dirt that spills out. “How can someone so neat get so dirty in an herb garden? Remarkable.”

“You think I’m adorable. You want to kiss me,” Erik tells him sweetly. He gets to his feet anyway. “And stop calling it a date.”

“Yes, dear. Have a good shower.”

Erik’s mind is bright as he trots away. His voice drops low and suggestive as he calls over his shoulder, “Oh, I plan to.”

> _…For all its adulation,_ TDM _is no stranger to controversy. Unsurprisingly to Lehnsherr, much of the uproar involved his personal life. The anchor has often been criticized for having a progressive agenda; for being bisexual; for secretly marrying his husband of five years, Charles Xavier; for refusing to apologize when some of his early, divisive writings on mutants and the need for an uprising were unearthed._
> 
> _In his own words, Lehnsherr provoked ‘one shitstorm after another’. The last, a piece on modern anti-religious sentiment and its permissiveness of bigotry, was especially controversial with the show’s longtime adversary Vulpine and Co for its lack of emphasis on Christianity, but Lehnsherr has stated he has no regrets about the piece._
> 
> _“Vulpine has a soapbox big enough to decry that religion’s issues,” he explained. “None of the others have that influence. I grew up in Christian homes, and I have to say, it’s a different world for American Christians. That’s a good thing. I don’t want them to suffer, but come on. Mr. O'Reely is quick to point out how I’m Jewish and ask why I’m not more open about it. Now, I’m not sure what ‘more’ he wants than a show dedicated to Yom Kippur or that on-air discussion I had with that Reform scholar over a Tanakhic principal._
> 
> _“But Mr. O'Reely and the others forget something: I really don’t care what they think._ TDM _isn’t news. It’s a bunch of assholes fucking around. And when it comes to my personal life, I’m just too busy having deviant sex with my husband and cleaning up after our school of happy mutant children to wonder if a bunch of people I barely know approve of me.”_
> 
> _Lehnsherr’s replacement has been chosen, but he, like the networks, is keeping mum. What has been confirmed, however, is where Lehnsherr’s retirement from TV has taken him._  

Kitty arrives before Erik has finished getting ready. Summer weekends are always slow, so Charles is free to meet her in the kitchen without worrying about students wandering off or setting their books on fire.

“Don’t be shy,” he calls, gesturing her in as she peeks into the kitchen. “This place is as much your home now as it was before you graduated.”

She beams at him and comes over for a hug. Charles will never admit it aloud, but Kitty has always been one of his favorites. She has a good head on her shoulders, and despite some early fumbles, she and Ilyana make a wonderful couple. Two happy, healthy mutants in a solid relationship- whether they know it or not, the two of them have given hope to a lot of the students.

“Erik is still in the shower, I’m afraid,” he apologizes. Kitty rolls her eyes as she drops into a chair- after all her time at the school, she knows Erik’s habits well. “He was rather messy last I saw, to be fair. He’s working on a herb garden, you know.”

“I can’t believe he’s actually doing this.” At Charles’ confused look, she waves at hand. “You know, retiring. Learning to garden. Not shouting at people five days a week.”

Chuckling, Charles pulls the oven door open and pulls out a package of biscuits. “I doubt he’ll ever be that retired. You’re right, though. I didn’t think he’d be able to do this. Not so soon anyway.” Pulling out a handful of biscuits for himself, he offers the box to Kitty, who only hesitates a moment before doing the same. Charles settles back in his chair, a mixture of relief and joy washing over him. “But here he is. And he’s happy. He is so happy, Kitty.”

Kitty tilts her head, and Charles can almost see her mental notepad opening up. “You seem surprised.”

“I am surprised. Erik was born fundamentally sweet. He still is, and he shows it openly- just not in ways we think of as being sweet.” At her frown, he elaborates. “Let me give you an example: we fight. He argues against me, and he pushes me, and he takes me to task. Because he loves me. He forces me to answer for myself, question myself. It makes me a better man- as you know, I’m not the best at human interaction, but I’m better for having Erik around to argue me into sense. It’s upsetting in the moment, yes, but I suspect he feels similarly.”

That was more than he intended to say, but Charles won’t take it back. It’s all true- Erik fights because he loves.

Kitty takes his extended monologue with her usual thoughtfulness. It’s no surprise Erik agreed to let her have his final interview. Besides their common background, she is one of their greatest successes: a steady mixture of Charles’ conciliatory nature and Erik’s dogged interest in the truth.

Speaking of Erik, Charles feels the contours of his favorite mind grouching through the laundry, wondering why his underwear doesn’t fit.

_Those are mine, darling. Yours are in the wash._

Erik acknowledges him with a mental huff before resigning himself to a day wearing Charles’ underwear.

 _Not the whole day, surely,_ Charles teases.

True to form, Erik’s mental ears prick up. _No?_

“Oh, ew, are you two flirting?”

Moment broken, Charles refocuses on the green-faced mutant in his kitchen, rather than the one imagining stripping down in it. He coughs, both to clear his throat and to hide his embarrassment.

“I really hoped getting married would make you guys less obvious, you know?” Kitty whines. “I mean, getting out of trouble was easier when you two were mooning over each other, but come on, man. You’re like my dads. Watching you eye fuck each other is bad enough.”

“Don’t be crass.”

“What? You’re using protection, aren’t you, Professor? Sexually transmitted infections can occur at any age, you know.”

Charles drops his head into his hands. “I take it back. I take it all back. Ilyana is a terrible influence.”

“Actually, that one came from Bobby.”

“What one came from Bobby?”

Unspeakably relieved, Charles turns to take in Erik’s beautiful, freshly changed visage. Let him handle youngsters and their impertinent terminology.

“Nothing,” Kitty says hurriedly, demonstrating that time and distance have not dulled her understanding that challenging Erik Lehnsherr to an embarrassing discussion will leave him whistling in victory and his defeated opponent deeply unhappy. “I was just talking to the Professor about your relationship.”

Erik isn’t fooled, but he lets the comment slide in favor of padding to Charles’ side and giving him a quick peck on the cheek- a deft distraction as he nabs one of Charles’ treats.

“Let’s get this over with,” he tells Kitty, effectively stomping any protest Charles might have made about the theft, “before the Professor has us braiding each other’s hair.”

The two of them are up and out of their seats and partway up the stairs before Charles thinks to shout, “That was one time, and you deserved it!”


	8. and i will rain holy hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, pirate au inspired by black sails

Erik returns to his ship amid cheers and hungover groans from his crew. Nassau has been a profitable layover in their chase, for them as much as for him. Their stock is replenished, morale is high despite the men paying for last night’s activities, and soon they will be back to sea.

Appearing at his side out of thin air, Azazel shouts at the crew to get back to work. It is only a moment later that he asks, voice low, “And how was your visit, Captain? Did you enjoy all the land has to offer?” He raises a brow as he asks, as if the amused drawl had not given the euphemism away.

“I enjoyed it plenty, old devil,” Erik replies evenly, though he can’t help that his lips quirk into a smile.

“Mr. Xavier was not unforgiving then? I thought you barred from his bed after the last time.”

Charles did bar Erik from his bed- from their bed, even if it does get more use from Charles than Erik. But old habits die hard, and Charles was their quartermaster far longer than he’s been a merchant. He pushes Erik and snaps about portions and equality, but when it comes down to it, Charles is a man’s man. He needs human comforts just like the rest of them.

“He reconsidered,” is all Erik says, but Azazel cracks a wicked smile and lets out a bark of a laugh.

“I don’t know why you leave, Captain. If I had somebody friendly warming my bed every night, I’d never leave.”

A hundred responses whip past Erik- _Have you forgotten his temperament already?_ foremost among them- but he says nothing, simply allows Azazel his licentious suggestions and breaks away for a spot by Janos where he can think in relative peace. The helmsman is a quiet sort of man who came to Erik as part of a set with Azazel. Neither has divulged much about their meeting or what brought them to piracy, save that it involved Schmidt.

The name makes Erik think not of vengeance as it usually does, but of regret. It is their chase that keeps Erik at sea when he would rather be in Nassau with Charles. Every fight, every wound, every near-encounter, they used to propel him. The chase was his energy. But now…

Now, his shoulder hurts in the mornings. His knees creak. Battles are just more death. More opportunities for him to be taken from Charles.

Erik almost lost Charles in that keeling accident. They were lucky it was just his leg he lost. It made him unfit for life as a pirate, and Erik can’t say he regrets that. Charles has a first class mind but also has a sensitive nature to go with it. He never should have been a pirate in the first place. He may be an irascible bastard when he’s in a mood, but he’s Erik’s irascible bastard, one who deserves a long and happy life on land.

Smiling to himself, Erik thinks back over their latest reunion. It wasn’t nearly as salacious as Azazel implied. First came the scolding, then the yelling and the threatening. Then there was the silence and finally, finally, a hand beckoning him over. Before Charles, Erik was never much interested in hugs. They were for children. Yet now he thirsts for them. The comforting weight of Charles in his arms, the chance to be scolded in a low voice near his ear, the spray of a wide hand stroking his back- it’s home.

The sea makes a poor mistress; she is cold and does little to distract Erik from his memories.

He has few of last night that aren’t of Charles running fingers through his hair or making Erik strip for the most clinical exam that culminated in Erik falling asleep with Charles at his back before anything exciting could happen. He doesn’t mind. When he woke, Charles was playing absently with Erik’s hair with one hand and turning the pages of a book with the other.

When he finally kills Schmidt, Erik is going to return to Nassau, he’s going to make a second indent in their mattress, and he’s going to wake up every morning to a Charles whose smile is happy rather than sad.

But first he has to kill Schmidt.

As he has from the first voyage he made with Charles left behind in Nassau, Erik feels his resolve strengthen. This will be their final journey. This time, he will find and kill Schmidt.

This time, he will return for the last time.


	9. radical factions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, canon divergence au, snippet from a larger wip

Erik returns on a Monday.

The sun is out, the children are in their classes, and Charles is fending off yet another request from the student government to please let them have a trip to the pictures. The argument is the most cogent yet; one day they will find their way to one Charles cannot logic his way out of saying yes. He both dreads and anticipates it. Until then, he can point out that it would be unfair to leave behind the children with mutations too unstable for the outside world.

And, it turns out, he can dismiss them when two familiar minds appear too close for comfort.

 _Hank,_ he calls, wheeling himself toward the lift, _we have company._

Ten minutes later, Charles and Hank are sitting in the infirmary, Azazel and Mystique standing with hunched shoulders pressed together opposite them on the far side of a cushion-laden exam table. Erik is lying prone in the center of it all, his shallow breaths the only sound in the room. Even unconscious, his face is deeply lined; for all their fighting, Charles is tired of the part he has played in his friend’s desperate search for a home.

“I did what I could,” Hank says quietly. Mystique flinches. “I got it out and closed what I could, but the rest is up to him.”

Azazel tilts his head. “This is the same as what human doctors say,” he observes mildly.

“If you’re unhappy with my work, feel free to take him and leave.”

“What I mean is, you are a genius, no? You could not come up with something better?”

“And no human geniuses have ever looked at medicine, have they?” Hank bristles.

Sensing an outburst, Charles lays a hand on Hank’s arm. _Not here. Not now._

The boy blows out a breath but relents.

“Erik can stay while he heals,” Charles says, turning his attention to the Brotherhood members. “I’d like to extend you the same courtesy-”

“Don’t bother,” Mystique interrupts. The words are curt, even harsh.

They loved each other once. They were each other’s best friend. Charles only ever wanted her to be safe and happy, but it seems he managed neither- managed the just opposite, to judge by the way her mind is prickling just by being near him.

“Very well,” he says mildly. “We’ll contact you when he wakes up. Until then, I trust you can see yourselves out.”

Mystique frowns, her mind blaring with confusion and hurt, and Charles finds himself aching for a drink. He deals with mercurial children all day long. Mystique should not be any harder on him to handle than Illyana or Ororo, but somehow she is.

Luckily, Azazel nods and, a moment later, the infirmary is filled with sulfur smoke.

“The air filtration system is going to need overhauling, isn’t it?” Hank asks wearily.

Charles sighs. “Put it on expenses.”

 

**_xx_ **

 

Erik wakes up a week later.

Charles gets down to the infirmary in time to watch him tug the cannula out of his nose.

“I wouldn’t do that with the IV if I were you,” Charles says drily.

Erik hesitates, hand grasped around the tube, but ultimately decides against ripping the needle out. An uncommon display of forethought, that.

“Where am I?”

“The infirmary.”

Erik squints for a moment, before muttering, “Doesn’t look like one.”

He has a point. The room’s walls are a cheery blue; the lights are softer than a hospital’s, the bulbs deliberately not fluorescent; and there isn’t a medical instrument in sight. The sheets are soft and smell like soap, not bleach. Even the table feels more like a bed thanks to the padding.

“The children come here sometimes,” Charles explains with a shrug. “I don’t want them associating it with other exam rooms.”

Erik understands immediately, as Charles knew he would. It was the echoes of Erik’s own trauma that convinced Charles to make the infirmary any color but white. Smell any way but sterile. Be anything but clinical. It is a place of comfort, now. A place the children come to when they hurt so they can feel better. Where they will be cared for. Not a place to be examined, picked apart by men hiding behind masks.

“You should take it easy.”

Erik huffs. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me, not fighting for us.”

So, it’s going to be one of those conversations. “As I’ve said in the past, I’d like it if you weren’t killing innocent people. If you could at least not be so brazen about putting yourself in harm’s way…”

“And do what instead, Charles? Let harm come to our brothers and sisters who can’t fight back?”

The strangest feeling is echoing in Erik’s mind. He isn’t being combative for the sake of it, isn’t trying to lure Charles into a fight neither of them ever wins. It’s almost as if…

_It can’t be._

“You know I would never ask you to do that,” Charles says, a touch too sharp.

“Then what, old friend? How do I protect our people if I’m not out there fighting for them?”

“You could join us.”

There it is. That flicker of emotion in Erik’s mind. Guilt and longing, tied up with a sense of duty nearly as old as he is. And he’s tired. No man can wage a war without growing weary, not even Erik. Especially not Erik. All the good in him is rebelling against what he does- for all his insistence on bringing death, Erik is hungry for peace.

“I will not sit here and twiddle my thumbs while our family is in danger,” he snaps.

Charles raises his hands, palms out. “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“Then what are you asking?”

And here lies the real problem. How to convince Erik of his plan.

“What if I told you there was another way?”

 

**_xx_ **

 

Hank is understandably upset.

“You can’t do this!” he protests as Charles shows Erik where the important papers are kept.

“This is absurd!” he growls as Charles unlocks Erik’s old bedroom.

“Professor, please. Think of the children,” he pleads as Charles readies his suitcase.

“Charles…”

“It’s for the best,” Charles assures him. “I’m sure I’ll be back soon.”

This is a lie, and a bad one. Hank rolls his eyes and asks, “How will you get the others to agree?”

“Logic.”

“That’s a terrible plan.”

“Hank, my boy, I’m a telepath. I think no can convince them of my worth.”

“You’d do that?”

“Do what? Oh, heavens no. Really, Hank. I meant I would be a valuable part of the team. Now, about that portable Cerebro…”

 

**_xx_ **

 

Mystique loses, three votes to one.

“Angel!”

“What?” The other girl shrugs. “He’s powerful, and having somebody less explosive can only be good.”

His sister storms off, leaving Charles alone with the the Brotherhood. “So,” he begins, acutely aware that just two days ago, these people would have left him for dead without hesitation, “let’s take a look at your finances.”


	10. iron scissors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, modern barber au  
> i said i was working on a hairdresser au, but i’m actually torn between two plots. since i have one already semi-written and y’all have been so cool, i thought i’d share part of it.

Charles has just let out a sigh of relief when his sister’s muffled voice breaks his shell of denial.

“You wore a cardigan,” she observes from the far side of the door. “A cardigan. With unironic elbow patches. On a red carpet.”

It’s hard to tell whether Raven is delighted or horrified. He could find out, but Charles is too mortified to face the reality of either. On his phone’s screen blares the summary of his faux pas. He hasn’t read much past the title, but he knows what the article says- the same thing they all say. How can our darling, glamorous starlet’s brother dress be such a fashion cretin? How is Mystique related to such a slob?

 _(Oh, yes,_ says the undertone, _she’s not_. _)_

It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t planned to go somewhere nice dressed as he was. Not that the bloggers or the red-faced news readers care that Charles had just got back from two month’s guest lecturing at Cambridge, was absolutely knackered, and had no idea there was an awards show on at all, let alone one he was expected to attend. He’d been thinking of nothing but a good night’s sleep in his own bed, only to get ambushed by Emma on his way out of baggage claim.

Instead of a relaxing evening in, Charles wound up thrust in front of a line of flashing cameras and sat for hours at a table with strangers in a hot, smelly room while his sister waited to receive her latest award.

At least it’s over now. The emergency bourbon is doing its work, and Raven has, mercifully, refrained from trying to force her way in.

With any luck, this will all blow over within the week.  


**_xx_ **

  
Two weeks later, just in time for the first of the big award shows, Charles gets a text from Emma with his marching orders.

_Go see Erik._

 

 **_xx  
_**   


The salon is housed in a small, unassuming apartment squashed between its neighbors. Charles and Raven make the walk from her car to the door without ducking their heads or running. One of the perks of coming to Hellfire is the owner’s insistence that paparazzi can, in his words, “fuck off”. He made it clear early on that none of them would be welcome on his block, and any pictures of his clientele wouldn’t be worth the paper they’d be printed on. Pissing off a metallokinetic, it turns out, is unwise for men whose job involves cameras.

Inside, Hellfire looks less like the home of a world-renowned beautician and more like a friendly small town barbershop. Every remotely horizontal surface is product-laden; every vertical surface is covered in photos yellowed with age.

Raven is pointing out a new addition to the wall of hair styles- a sketch of an arrangement so complicated it makes Charles’ head hurt- when a voice calls, “Alex! What did you do with the hair spray?”

A moment passes with the siblings staring at each other, equally unwilling to be the first to break.

“Sounds like,” Raven squeaks, “a _sticky_ situation.”

Charles feels the approaching sour mood darken further, but he’s helpless before his sister’s puffed up cheeks and reddening face.

Erik isn’t pleased to find them wheezing with laughter in his waiting room, but he doesn’t scold them, merely jerks his head at Raven and orders, “Sink, now.”

He doesn’t immediately follow her as Raven scurries off, though, instead staying where he is and squinting at Charles.

“You, too, Charles,” he says at last. When Charles doesn’t hop to right away, Erik’s scowl deepens. “Don’t play coy. You and I both know Frost called me. Even if she hadn’t, you’re overdue for a cut.” He reaches out and flips one side of Charles’ straggly bangs. “You look like a drowned rat.”

Charles sighs and walks off without further argument, but only because Emma will have a fit if he doesn’t emerge with a satisfactory cut and Erik is just petty enough to screw him over.  


**_xx  
_**   


While he waits for Erik to return from his search for hair spray, Charles gets to work prepping his sister and himself. He wraps the neck tissues around their necks, lets Raven slide the plastic cape into place before doing the same.

There is only one sink, with only one chair, which Charles defers to Raven. He may know not to fight Erik about getting a trim, but he won’t cut into his sister’s time.

Raven has her phone to fiddle with while they wait, which leaves Charles free to flop down on the sofa across the room. He’s not sure when the sofa migrated here, but it hardly matters. He enjoys watching Erik work, and Raven gets chastised less for wriggling now she and Charles can make faces at each other.

With nothing else to do, Charles’ mind wanders to Erik.

Erik Lehnsherr is possibly the least likely beautician Charles has ever encountered. His years of experience churned out the polar opposite of the usual fey Hollywood stylist. Erik has the bearing of a drill sergeant and a temperament to match. He has zero tolerance for nonsense- except his own.

(Erik is an unrepentant show-off; the smallest invitation to demonstrate his gift can lead to all sorts of wonders. And property damage.)

Despite his severe personality, Erik has the distinction of being the world’s most sought after beautician. Considering he’s made Raven’s appearance “trendsetting” every year, Charles figures he’s earned it.

“What’s he complaining about now?” The words come from startlingly close to Charles’ ear- it’s all he can do not to startle off the sofa. The worn monstrosity groans at the sudden weight flopped onto it but not loudly enough to cover Charles’ grunt as Erik’s upstairs neighbor commandeers the cushion beside him. Alex shoots Charles an innocent look, which he promptly ruins by rolling his eyes.

“It sounded like he was missing some kind of spray,” Charles answers lightly. The immediate rush of guilt and panic would damn the boy even if his face didn’t. “You may want to make a run for it, old chap. He’s feeling cranky today.”

Alex, naturally, doesn’t take the advice. “Nah,” he drawls, sprawling out bonelessly on the empty cushions. “Erik won’t do anything ‘til you’re gone, and he’ll be fine by then.”

Patently untrue. Erik does as he pleases, when he pleases. The disaster with Emma Frost the time she tried to make him take on more star clients is clear evidence of that. Charles was there for the whole debacle, as Alex and everyone else who suggests Erik is somehow more lenient around him well knows.

As if summoned by the thought, Erik appears, gracefully breezing through the cramped break in the partition as if he hadn’t had to step over both Charles’ and Alex’s legs. “I know you were practicing with your brothers, Summers, but the least you could do is pay me back for what you incinerated,” he says mildly. “And, Charles, take that off. I know you’re trying to be helpful, but you always get it caught on something. I’d rather not have you break your neck in my shop.”

Charles would like to argue that, and he would. The problem is, nine times out of ten, what Erik says isn’t wrong. As he reaches up and gets to work freeing himself from the plastic drapery, his couch-mate scurries off before Erik’s mood sours- but not without twisting around and mouthing, “See?” Charles may or may not give him a mental flick on the nose.

Erik sets about getting Raven’s hair shampooed and ready for him to do his beauty magic, the sounds of metal-bottomed bottles rearranging themselves on the counter signaling the beginning of the ritual. Just as the taps turn and Raven has let out a squeak at the temperature, Erik disrupts the silence by grumbling, “Stop sulking.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Charles, you’re a telepath. I can _feel_ you. And I promise, what you’re doing is sulking.”

“Impossible.”

Erik obviously disagrees but leaves the discussion at that and moves instead to begin working on Raven’s hair.

 

**_xx_**

 

Before he gets to work with the scissors, before he even nudges Charles’ neck into the groove of the sink, Erik runs his fingers through Charles’ hair and makes a disapproving clucking noise. He doesn’t immediately respond to Charles’ mental assurance that he can be trusted to brush his hair, instead slipping his fingers through the overlong hairs at the back of Charles’ head and pushing his hand up through Charles’ hair to the top of his head. After a moment, he does it again, but with his hand shifted to the left.

It feels… good. Very good. The headache that’s been clinging to him for the past three weeks dissipates. The nagging sense of worry, ill-defined and constant, melts at Erik’s ministrations. Charles even winds up letting some slack into the hold he keeps on his telepathy; it moves immediately to Erik’s mind, which is thoughtful about something too well-hidden for Charles to see without pushing. He can’t muster the energy to feel hurt at being kept out, instead reveling in the unusual quietness of Erik’s mind.

The feeling goes on and on, Erik’s fingers stripping away all Charles’ tension, until Raven’s voice shatters the quiet. “Please tell me you didn’t drug my brother.”

A flicker of something- irritation?- crosses Erik’s mind, but it disappears before Charles can identify it. His voice is a little tight when he replies in the negative, telling Raven he doesn’t need drugs to make a telepath purr, which is a bit offensive but clearly true.

“Wha wassat?” Charles slurs. Despite the interruption, he hasn’t entirely lost the pleasant fuzzy feeling.

Erik chuckles but doesn’t, to Charles’ hazy dismay, resume his petting, instead withdrawing his hand entirely. “You complained about your head itching last time you were here,” he tells Charles. “It reminded me of something I read about telepaths sometimes having poor circulation in their heads.”

“So you made me your guinea pig.”

“You don’t sound too upset.”

“I can’t. You made me feel like I’m made of pink fluffy hearts and kittens.” Another strange emotion ripples fleetingly across Erik’s mind. If he were less drowsy, Charles would be able to identify it without a problem, but if he weren’t so fuzzy, he isn’t sure Erik would have felt whatever he just did. “If you ever want to do any more experiments, I’m your man.”

Raven makes a strange, choking sound from wherever she is. Charles ignores her in favor of letting himself be slid back in the chair so his neck fits in the opening at the front of sink. The cold porcelain makes him twitch but hardly touches his feeling of being at peace.

Getting hit in the face with a burst of frigid water, not so much.

Spluttering and all sense of love and peace with the universe dissolves in the face of deepest betrayal. Raven lets out a howl of laughter, but it’s his own reaction that makes him prickle. Erik does nothing to hide his snickering as a towel smacks Charles in the face.

“I hate you both,” Charles announces.

Raven’s mental eye roll is loud enough it could drown out a jackhammer. _You love me,_ she insists, and unfortunately for Charles, she’s right.

Erik doesn’t reply in words, but he does let his mental guards down enough to nudge playfully at him- and share his memory of the face Charles pulled the moment the water made contact. It’s such a change from the way Erik usually is at work that Charles struggles to want to find a comeback. He likes this friendly side of the man; it makes him light up inside, the protective barbs giving way to allow his softer nature to peek out.

That Erik’s soft side enjoys surprising Charles by hitting him with water probably says something about him, but Charles doesn’t particularly care about that.

Wiping himself off, Charles throws the towel at Erik’s head, which Erik catches easily, then settles himself back in the chair. “Do it again,” he warns, “and I will make you wear one of your capes like Superman does and run around shouting about justice.”

Cowed by the severity of the threat, Erik snorts at him. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” Benevolent as he is, Charles restrains himself from reminding Erik it wouldn’t be the first time the man donned a cape and ran about “fighting crime.” Raven doesn’t know about that, though, and Charles won’t inflict her curiosity on Erik just yet. Another spray in the face, though, and that could easily change.

Luckily for Erik the shampooing goes without further incident, save a minor slip up on Charles’ part. It was just a little thing, hardly worth noting. Just Charles getting caught up in the motion of Erik’s hands working the shampoo through his hair. He caught himself almost the moment he started slipping back into that fuzzy headspace. Neither Erik nor Raven’s mind showed any trace of suspicion, so really, it may as well not have happened.

The cutting itself goes the way it always does. Charles sits down, Erik tells him to uncross his legs (“Honestly, Charles, it’s as if you want to look lopsided”), and the battle begins.

“Do you want to keep your hair long,” Erik asks, “or do you want me to cut it short again?”

Charles shrugs.

“You know that isn’t an answer.”

“Honestly, Erik, I trust your judgement. Just do whatever you think is best.”

Teeth creaking, Erik waves a metal-handled brush over from the vanity. “One of these days, I’m going to take you up on that and shave you from neck to nose,” he mutters.

“Whatever you like,” Charles says amiably.

Then the actual haircut begins. Erik immediately begins grumbling about lumpy skulls and annoying academics who don’t know how to take care of themselves. Charles can tell he really isn’t that upset and happily lets himself be distracted by Raven reading out her latest Twitter kerfuffle. Erik has to tell him a number of times to stop moving. Charles tries to keep still, but Raven has a knack for finding particularly incoherent yet colorful expressions of anti-mutant hate. He can’t help but laugh at some of them. He can hardly be expected to keep completely still when Raven switches to Facebook and reads out someone’s essay explaining that mutants are just humanity’s ligers and therefore are all born fully sterile, an essay that has a comment that simply reads, “My bf got me pregnant. Twice.” A comment that got, of all things, a reply with a lecture on premarital sex. Of course he laughs, and of course Erik gets annoyed and threatens to kick Raven out.

In the end, no one gets kicked out, Charles’ ears emerge intact, and Erik has taken him from grungy, drowned rat to respectable nerd.

“Next time you let it go this long,” Erik warns as he frees Charles from cape and tissue and replaces them with a dash of powder, “I’m giving you a bowler cut.”

Raven gasps. “Erik, please. I have to be seen with him!”

“Then make sure he gets his ass back in my chair sooner,” Erik calls back as he wanders off in search of his box of makeup. His mind is rumbling with suspicion that Alex might have gotten into it to help his little sister, the poor girl.

Charles ignores them. “How much do we owe you this time?”

“Twenty-five as usual: fifteen for her, ten for you.”

Raven and Charles share a look. “The usual” is the amount Erik charges everyone else for a simple cut. Raven alone ought to owe Erik at least seventy, easily, for the amount of work he puts into styling her hair. He does her makeup, too, for reasons Raven has never made clear. But any attempt at getting him to take more only gets his hackles up- it’s a strange feeling, being scolded by a man whose mind is kindly pointing out that Raven was his first big client and the one who launched his career. He won’t even let them tip him extra.

This time, Charles has a strategy for getting around the pay fighting. He’s been sitting on it for a while, waiting for Erik to be in the right mood, and today feels like the day.

“What are you smiling about?” Raven asks, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Caught out by his own face. Damn. Scrambling, Charles cranks up the smile. “Nothing at all, sister dearest. I was just thinking how radiant you look even now and how you’ll steal all the attention later.”

“You’re a terrible liar, but fine. Keep your secrets.”

For a moment, just a moment, Charles sees red. For Raven to say that to him of all people…!

“All right, Mystique, what look did you settle on? I know you brought pictures of the dress like I asked,” Erik says, startling them both. His timely return breaks the moment, and Charles deflates before he can say anything foolish.

The two quickly settle into last-minute discussions of color palettes and “romantic” vs “sultry” and myriad other things Charles is happy not to understand. He isn’t necessary to any of this; he really only comes out of habit. That and, if he’s honest, fear. He tried to tell Raven to go without him once, and they had the worst fight he can remember. So he doesn’t push, even when he really doesn’t want to go.

Raven isn’t sixteen and unsure of her place in the world anymore. Everyone says it: her interviews show an intelligent, confident young woman now, rather than a girl whose eagerness to please causes her to fumble and whose uncertainty makes her lash out. One day she will tell him she doesn’t need him to sit nearby when she gets her hair cut, and when Charles doesn’t resist, she will, appearance by appearance, let him fade from this part of her life.

For now, he contents himself with reading through his T.A.’s notes. All indicate Hank is growing in confidence and the class is responding to it. He always makes it clear that he can’t wait for Charles to return, but Charles suspects the boy is getting a taste for it.


	11. you talkin’ to me? (i’m walkin’ here!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, modern au, fluff  
> original prompt: Vague not really even a prompt from my half dead brain but Cherik 'I swear I see that guy every day on my way to work, why does he keep glaring at me?'  
> title from a john oliver bit in the bugle

Charles’ favorite part of the morning is his commute. For all the frustrations of navigating the city in a wheelchair, he loves getting caught up in the grumbling hustle of half-asleep New Yorkers, loves riding the psychic waves of determination pouring off the people dodging and dashing around him. Any negative thoughts tend to get drowned in general press of _damn, I’m tired, why do I do this, I don’t even like this job that much._

Sometimes, though… Sometimes a particularly focused mind will stick out.

As Charles, who has dropped behind his usual pack of fellow commuters, passes by the windows of a little coffee shop, his gift snags on an unfamiliar mind. When he looks up, he finds the source immediately. Sat at one of the al fresco tables is a man in a sharp suit, cup clutched possessively between both hands. He doesn’t blink when Charles locks eyes with him; if anything, his brow furrows harder.

He’s just one man, and there’s no malice in his mind, so Charles shakes his head and moves on.

The next day, as he makes his way to the school, Charles’ gift catches once again on a mind, and when enough of the others pass for him to see, there is the man from the day before. He’s wearing a different suit, but his coffee is still held protectively close, his eyes still narrowed as he stares directly at Charles.

Yet there’s nothing in his mind that says he’s angry, and he makes no move to get up. He just… glares in Charles’ direction. And it is Charles he’s staring at. His mind is fixated on something smooth and warm, which makes about as much sense as Charles having caught the man’s attention in the first place. He’s hardly the only man in a wheelchair who takes this route to work- he knows for a fact that the kindergarten teacher does, too.

As Charles wheels away, though, the man’s attention follows him.

It goes on like this for weeks. Charles should perhaps be unsettled by the attention; instead, he’s merely curious. What is it about him that has this man so bothered? What about him produces that sensation in the man’s mind of _smooth_ and _warm_ and _what_?

A mutation seems most likely, but it’s impossible to tell.

It isn’t until the last day of school before summer break that Charles makes up his mind to find out what on earth has the stranger so annoyed with him. None of the other teachers has mentioned being glared at, and while Gary has seen the man, he hasn’t attracted the same baseless ire Charles has.

And that is why, on a day when he is dressed in his most ridiculous jeans and obnoxious yellow school t-shirt, Charles breaks from the crowd and wheels deliberately over to the table where Glares A Lot is sitting.

“Every day,” Charles accuses, leveling his own glare at the man. “Every day I come by here, and every day, you glare at me.”

The man blinks, clearly thrown that Charles would confront him, but he rallies quickly. His lips stretch into a wide, knowing smile as he puts his cup down.

“Who says you’re the one I’m glaring at?”

“I do.”

“Surely I would be a better judge of who I’m glaring at and who I’m not,” the man replies easily.

Charles raises a brow. “I’m a telepath, and you think very loudly.”

Any concern Charles may have been harboring about revealing that fact dissolves as the man’s smile turns brighter, less smug and more generous.

“That changes things somewhat,” he agrees easily. “Say I was looking at you-”

“Glaring at me.”

“Looking, glaring, what’s the difference?”

“The amount of annoyance, I suspect.”

Glares A Lot hums thoughtfully. “What if I wasn’t annoyed?”

“I think I can tell the difference between emotions at this point in life.”

“Then what if I said I was annoyed, but not at you?”

“Why would you be glaring at me if you were annoyed at someone else?”

“Thing,” the man corrects.

“Pardon?”

“Something else.” Tapping his temple, he only smiles harder as he adds, “I was annoyed that I didn’t have my glasses.”

Charles isn’t fooled. “For two months?”

“I already broke two pairs, and my insurance won’t cover a third for another couple months.”

A likely story- genuinely. Either this is the truth, or Charles is talking to such an accomplished liar, the man could spin and fully convince himself of the truth in a story in moments.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re squinting at _me_ ,” Charles says, somewhat petulantly.

Glares A Lot quirks a brow at him. “Doesn’t it?”

“Obviously not.”

“You’re not very good at picking up cues, are you?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything-”

“I’m flirting with you,” the man says with a huff. “I was ‘glaring’ because I was trying to figure out if you looked like you had the time to grab a cup of coffee.”

“That’s absurd.”

“I disagree.”

There isn’t much Charles can say to that which won’t turn out just as petulant as something one of his students would come out with, so he contents himself with a heavy sigh. He ought to get moving. It wouldn’t do to keep the children waiting on field day of all days, not even for an attractive man with, from the smell of it, good taste in coffee.

“So what is it?”

Wrenched from his contemplation of coffee beans, Charles jerks back to reality to find his partner eyeing him knowingly.

“I have to go to school,” Charles blurts. Confusion colors the other man’s thoughts, so he adds a hasty, “Because I’m a teacher. Today is the last day, and I really can’t skip. But perhaps you’ll extend the invitation one more day?” he asks smoothly, recovering quickly.

“I think I can manage that.”

“Considering you’ve only waited how long before now, it’s only fair.”

“I suppose you have a point.” Nodding to himself, the man holds out a hand. “Erik Lehnsherr.”

Charles returns Erik’s firm shake happily and lets go reluctantly. “Charles Xavier. I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I suppose you will.”


	12. political pursuits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, modern setting, angst-ish  
> original prompt: cherik in hamilton AU

From his place at the back of the packed room, Erik has a poor view of the action going on below, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t need to see. Either result will be a betrayal. It’s a relatively small one in a lifetime full of them, but he always thought Charles would keep faith with him. He thought their vision for the world was the same: mutants, held in esteem, protected from humanity.

Charles promised him there was a better way. He swore to Erik that he knew how to bring their kind peace.

If Erik had known this was how his friend intended to accomplish it, he never would have agreed. If he had thought Charles would bow and scrape so low to the very people who ought to shake with fear at the very sight of him-

The bill passes; Erik bears witness to the beginning of the end.

Charles intercepts him on his way out.

“My friend,” he calls, stopping Erik in his tracks. That’s what Charles does best: stops Erik. Stops him from killing those humans on the beach, stops him from raising their mutant army, stops him from tearing apart this building where justice ought to be done. “Erik, wait. If you would just listen-”

“You’ve damned us all,” Erik snaps. “You did nothing to stop the registration.”

“I think you’ll find I did quite a lot to stop that,” Charles answers, rallying his own temper. “Registration will be handled by a committee composed solely of mutants. Humans will have no access to it. It will be used only to verify which of us may need more help than others- to potentially help us predict which children will be mutants so we can prevent accidents! It’s a good law, and I think you know that.”

How did Erik ever see Charles as anything but a selfish, patronizing human apologist? What happened to the man who passionately defended mutants’ right to anonymity? Where did their champion go, and why has he left this husk of a man in his stead?

“Erik…”

“You were supposed to protect us.” Charles startles, but Erik pushes on. “I thought you understood. So long as we seek to appease the people who would see us in chains, they will come for us. When I left drafting this bill to you, I did so believing you were as committed to preserving mutantkind as I.”

“How dare you?” Charles snarls. “I fought as best I could! There were going to have us registered no matter what- at least this way we are in charge!”

“And how long before that information gets leaked? How long before the CIA or the FBI comes sniffing around, begging for information on a mutant they claim is dangerous? How long before mutant is turning against mutant?”

“That won’t happen.”

Erik shakes his head. “It already has. Mark my words, Charles: you are only the first.”

“It won’t come to that. We’ve set up safeguards-”

“Damn your safeguards! You may rebuff them for a while, but in the end, they will take what they want. They always do.”

Nauseated, Erik steps quickly around Charles’ chair and ducks down a separate hallway. Charles calls after him, but Erik will not be stopped. Not this time.

They were like brothers, but even brothers betray each other.


	13. no longer the guardians

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, modern setting  
> original prompt: my personal #aesthetic is cherik on vacation in a house near the sea, late afternoon, rainy day. then the lights go out! ok lame? but hear me out : they light candles everywhere, and charles is wrapped in a fluffy blanket and erik goes to make some tea cuz it's getting cold, and when he comes back with two mugs, charles throws his blanket over erik's shoulders and fluffy cuddle ensues and whatever you want happens next. so, how's that for a prompt?  
> title from “the outer banks” by muriel rukeyser

One of the most obvious things about Charles Xavier is the man comes from money. Everything he owns is high quality; under his soft, baggy sweaters are tailored trousers and couture blazers. His shoes are Italian leather, perfectly shined- at least until the day begins and one of the children spills something on him. He has the careless disregard for grape soda-soaked expensive shoes of a man unconcerned with buying replacements.

Despite having lived with Charles for years, it still catches Erik off-guard when Charles casually says, “You, me, Cape Cod?”

“What’s in Cape Cod?” Erik asks, confused.

Charles blinks at him. “Oh. You wouldn’t know about that, would you? We have a cottage on the Cape. I thought, since Moira and Sean will be back, that we could spend a little time together.”

_Alone,_ Charles adds telepathically, as if Erik might have missed the suggestive dip of his husband’s voice. Subtlety is not Charles’ strong suit, never has been. He’s lucky he’s pretty.

“I heard that.”

“That was the point,” Erik says sweetly. “And to answer your question, yes.”

A soft wave of satisfaction washes over him as Charles says, “Good,” and promptly hauls himself onto this side, presenting his back to Erik.

Smiling softly, Erik pats Charles’ shoulder. “Good night, love.”

Charles’ reply is an inarticulate, mostly muffled grunt.  
  
  


The vacation is going swimmingly. They spent an afternoon lying on the beach before the storms came rolling in, Erik reading one of the contrived murder mysteries that populate the airports he spends so much time in on his journeys to pick up students while Charles snored away beside him. When they first got together, Erik had worried constantly about this. Charles is not a naturally quiet man, nor a self-contained one, and Erik was still unused to being so close to anyone, let alone a person as physically demonstrative as Charles. And it did take getting used to, but in a good way.

He no longer worries about waking Charles in the night with his terrors. Besides the fact that Charles sleeps through just about anything that doesn’t physically shove him off the bed- something that happens to both of them not infrequently, given the gifts their charges have- the man who exists at 2 AM is not the same as the one who does at 2 PM. He is quiet and soft; he lets himself be manhandled, dragged close where Erik can hold him. There is no psychoanalysis. No suggestions of wiping away the memories. Just a familiar weight curled on top of him, vague disgruntlement and _I’m here, the children are safe, go to sleep, love._

The cottage is small, even by Cape Cod standards, but open so Charles can navigate in his chair; Erik is reluctantly charmed by it and the bright grin Charles flashes every time Erik calls it theirs.

Rain is pattering against the little windows, the warmth from earlier replaced by a creeping cold, and the air is charged. His gift sings with it; this afternoon will see more than just rain showers.

Charles- who has himself swaddled up in blankets like an infant- has taken over the daybed, which leaves only the overstuffed recliner for Erik. His book is already on the seat, the light turned on- both thanks to Charles- but he finds he doesn’t want to sit down yet. Nervous energy makes him shift his weight as he stares out the window, looking for something he can’t name.

He’s weighing the odds of Charles fighting him about running during a storm when burst of energy strikes- not them, no, not them. But the lights go out nonetheless, and Erik finds himself standing in darkness.

It feels oddly lonely all of a sudden.

Then Charles huffs and says, “Better get the torches,” and Erik feels himself smile. He isn’t alone, hasn’t been for a long time, and so long as Charles is around, he won’t be again.

Old habits may die hard, but they do, eventually, die.

“I’ve got a better idea,” he says, and, feeling his way along the walls, heads to the bedroom. He may have been feeling sentimental when he packed. Why it was so hard to find candles in a house full of everything, Erik doesn’t know.

_Ah. I think we may have been thinking similarly,_ Charles says sheepishly. A moment later, a memory unfolds before Erik’s eyes: Charles, grabbing a box of candles and shoving them into his bag.

Chuckling, Erik grabs the candles from both their bags and, crucially, the matches he packed.

“How,” he asks when he returns, “were you thinking you’d light these without a flame?”

Charles sniffs, and that’s as close to an admission of “I didn’t think that far” as Erik is going to get.

Erik gets the candles set up and lit quickly, but by the time he’s done, Charles is shivering- he does get colder faster now. The stovetop ought to be working, so Erik heads off to the kitchen to make something warm for Charles.

_There’s tea in the bag on the table._

Of course there is. “Thanks, love.”

_I’m hardly going to make it harder for you._

“Charles, you make everything harder- please don’t make the joke. I don’t want to hate you.”

_Spoil sport._

Rolling his eyes, Erik sets about getting the kettle ready and boiling the water. While it heats up, he retreats to the bedroom and grabs the blanket off the spare bed.

“Let me have some dignity,” Charles grouches, but he allows Erik to wrap him up in the fluffy monstrosity. Erik winds up sitting on the edge of the bed by Charles’ hip, one hand on the back of the bed, the other holding one of Charles’ hands.

Strange, to think he once thought peace was impossible.

Stranger, to think he found it in this train wreck of a man.

“You know, you can be a real dick sometimes.”

“I love you.”

“And I, for reasons that escape me, love you.”

The kettle goes off, then, and Erik reluctantly gets up to go make Charles’ tea.

When he gets back, Charles is sitting up. The blanket is no longer tucked around him but lying on his lap.

“Thank you,” he sighs, accepting the mug when Erik holds it out. “Now sit down. I miss you.”

Erik sits down. Charles awkwardly throws the blanket over their shoulders one-handed, and with a little scooching and a lot of warnings not to make Charles spill his tea, they finally wind up sitting pressed together from knee to shoulder. Erik puts his arm around Charles, hand resting on one soft hip.

They sit like that in silence for a long time, huddled together against the cold, but Erik can feel Charles thinking.

“Hey, Erik?”

“Mhm?”

“Thank you. For coming back.”

If anyone should be saying thank you, it’s Erik. He’s the one who left. He’s the one who came crawling back, beaten and exhausted, hungry for a scrap of the peace Charles once promised him and found himself instead sat at the head of the table, presented with everything he ever dreamed of. It took time to get there- Charles isn’t actually a fool, and he’s more vulnerable to his emotions than he lets on- but Charles did let Erik back into the house. From there it was a slow, treacherous journey back to Charles’ good graces- a journey that included getting the approval of a sea of children this time around.

“I always will,” Erik reminds him. “No matter where I go, I’ll always come back to you.”

Charles doesn’t reply immediately, merely presses a kiss to Erik’s cheek.

“I knew you would, you know,” he says smugly. “You’re very predictable.”

“Well, you’re very annoying.”

“At least I’m handsome.”

“I’m sorry- which of us was voted most handsome teacher two years in a row?”

Charles grumbles something along the lines of _they will never find your body,_ and Erik ducks his head for an I’m-sorry-you’re-not-as-handsome-as-I-am kiss, which Charles accepts without a fuss.

“You can forget about me putting out,” he breathes when they break apart, his eyes still shut.

“I can live with that,” Erik says happily. And he can. He could live with far worse than that for Charles. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ll be going for a run tomorrow, regular time.”

That sets off another round of complaining, which makes Erik smile, which only serves to egg Charles on further. He even puts his tea down, the better to illustrate his points with his hands.

_Here,_ Erik thinks. _Here is what you wanted me to have, Mame. I found it._


	14. rhythms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, canon 'verse  
> original prompt: Okay I just started following you and I've only read 2 or 3 of your works but their absolutely lovely so if you're still taking prompts could you do a cherik falling asleep on each other thing please? I don't care at all about the specifics as long as one of them falls asleep on the other I am satisfied

Taking I-90 from D.C. to New York is a long, easy drive. With that in mind, Charles takes it upon himself to convince Erik into letting Hank drive them up; the children are all shaken by the loss of Darwin and Angel, and it would do Hank, the only one with an American driver’s license, good to be in control for a while. It takes less arguing than Charles would have expected. He only has to bring up the idea for Erik to start nodding.

“I understand how they feel,” is his reply to Charles’ observation that Erik was unusually quick to agree. “They’ve just lost two of their friends and had a shelter ripped away from them. They’re scared. I’m not heartless, Charles.”

 _Indeed not_ , Charles thinks as the two of them hop into the back of the truck. Erik is not half as cold as he thinks he is.

With Sean, Moira and Alex on one side, Erik and Charles take the bench seat opposite. They all look grim, but Alex in particular has retreated into himself. Charles will have to keep an eye on him lest the guilt bubbling away inside the boy turns destructive.

The military issue truck is not the smoothest of rides, but the interstate is well paved and made of long, sweeping turns. It isn’t surprising that the children start to fall asleep. Alex slouches back against the side of the truck, Sean’s head lolls to the side where it comes to rest on Moira’s shoulder, and even Raven falls asleep in the front. Moira herself looks nearly as tired as the children; she doesn’t quite fall asleep, but her mind does gloss over as she lets herself relax into the sway of the vehicle.

What is surprising is the way Erik is leaning into him. They are such different men, Erik so rigidly self-contained where Charles is always reaching for other people, that Charles sometimes forget that some of that difference is nurture rather than nature. Erik learned to rely on himself alone. He doesn’t touch because he never learned how. It’s a tragedy. Under his wry humor and harsh beliefs, Erik is a good man. A kind man. It’s love that makes him self-destructive, love that turns a protective nature militant. He ought to be a father to a house full of children, not a carrier of a vendetta that could well end his life.

Yet this is the world they live in. Erik did not grow up safe and loved. Mutants everywhere are vulnerable. Sebastian Shaw remains alive and well.

Hank guides them around a turn, and Erik sways harder against Charles. His eyes are shut now, his mind a haze of contentment.

A burst of protectiveness bubbles up in Charles’ gut. He has never been one for violence, but he could make an exception for Shaw. Twisting something as precious as a human soul… It isn’t Erik who is the monster.

There are hours left to drive from where they are to Westchester. Charles has gotten as little sleep as Erik, possibly less, and it’s with relief that he closes his eyes and lets sleep overtake him.

  
Moira wakes up when they hit a pothole. She hadn’t known she was asleep- certainly hadn’t meant to be- but she can’t deny she needed it as she startles into wakefulness. As her heartbeat slows back to a normal rhythm, she takes stock of the situation.

Hank is still driving, and Raven is fast asleep next to him. Sean is mumbling something in his sleep, his head still pillowed on Moira’s shoulder. Alex is awake now but has the far away look he’s had ever since they lost Darwin and Angel. She doesn’t try to talk to him.

On the other side of the truck, Charles and Erik are both sleeping, seemingly undisturbed by the jolt earlier. They’ve got their heads resting together, Charles’ head on Erik’s shoulder- there’s already a damp spot growing where Charles is drooling- and Erik’s cheek mashed against the crown of Charles’ head. It’s strange to see two men as fierce as Charles and Erik… cuddling, for lack of a better word. But here they are, asleep on each other like boys on a school trip.

It’s good, though. They all need something to lean on after what happened. If they have each other, there is a better chance that neither will do something too crazy.

Unless they wind up egging each other on, but that’s a thought that doesn’t bear thinking.

Settling back against the side of the truck, Moira lets out a sigh. They have a long journey ahead of them. She should get as much sleep as she can now before they let the children loose in the woods.


	15. aural assault: all is not quiet on the shower front

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> g, modern au  
> original prompt: if you still take prompt idea : erik listens to music and starts singing cuz he thinks he's alone but actually he wasn't and he's pretty sure charles will never let him live it down. i live for embarrassed!erik and cheeky!charles if you couldn't tell...(cheeky!charles would be such a good band name tho sorry i'll see myself out bye)

The best part of having a day off is showering. Not the quick, bare minimum clean of a work day. Not a bath like he takes after a rough scrimmage. Just a long, luxurious shower, complete with the tingly body wash his ex left behind that Erik keeps hidden so Charles can’t use it- the man lost the privilege of sharing Erik’s bath stuff when Erik caught him using Erik’s expensive conditioner to shave. No doubt, if Charles were to find this, he would use it all up.

Happily, Erik is good at hiding things, and Charles is terrible at finding them.

Unless they involve alcohol. Then he turns into a bloodhound.

This weekend, the bloodhound is out. Something about spending time with his sister at the family home or something; Erik was too busy planning the shower he was going to be taking to listen beyond that. As nice as unlimited shower time is, it’s even better when Charles isn’t around. Rooming with a stressed out grad student working on his thesis has some benefits- not so many parties, Charles is generally too busy stressing out to bother Erik- but the downside is, Charles is almost always home. And Erik just can’t fully enjoy his shower if he has an audience.

He’s going to have to buy Raven something good to thank her for her unwitting good deed.

Lathering up a washcloth with his special body wash, he sings, _“I’m scared, so afraid to show I care.”_ The minty smell immediately begins to fill the shower stall, and Erik could not be happier. _“Will he think me weak if I tremble when I speak?”_

Dancing around, he hums, _“Oooh,”_ trying to mimic that warbling thing Dion does with her voice. _“What if there’s another one he’s thinking of?”_

Erik will never admit it to anyone, but his mother’s taste in music is catchier than it has any business being.

He’s lost track of how many times he’s sung the song through by the time he steps out of the shower and into a towel. He briefly considers saving himself some steps and leaving it behind after toweling off but ultimately decides he would rather not risk someone looking through the first story window and catching an eyeful. So, with a towel around his waist and Streisand’s part on his tongue, he throws the bathroom door open and makes his way to his bedroom.

It’s only natural, what with Charles gone, to use his speakers. _Tell Him_ is the last song he was listening to, so he taps repeat until only that will play, then hits play.

He doesn’t mind having to wear a uniform usually- it certainly makes it easier for fellow security workers to spot him when he has to mix with regular people- but there’s something freeing about pulling on a pair of ratty sweats and a faded t-shirt instead.

The song is just getting to the good, intense part when he finishes pulling on his socks and stands up.

 _“Tell him,”_ he belts out in time with the ladies, throwing his bedroom door open like he did in the bathroom and sliding into the hall. _“Tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes. Reach out to him and whisper tender words so soft and sweet.”_

His stomach growls along, too, and Erik grins to himself at the thought of having time to make pancakes. _Days off_ , he thinks happily, _are the best._

The thought of eating something warm and homemade is so distracting, the song so moving, Erik doesn’t sense the hunk of metal waiting in the kitchen until it’s too late.

 _“Hold him close to feel his heart beat,”_ he cries, swinging around the corner, only to knock into something hard and fall forward onto his face. Ready for a fight- he worked hard for what he has, and he won’t be letting some thief make off with a single thing- he leaps back to his feet and whirls around, gift at the ready-

Only to come face to face with Charles.

Muffled though it is through the walls and pounding of blood in his ears, the song is still audible as Erik stares stupidly at his roommate.

_Love will be the gift you give yourself._

“Charles?” he splutters. “But you’re supposed to be with Raven.”

Both brows creeping up his forehead, Charles gives him a look that’s probably more effective on the children he tutors than it is on Erik. “If you’d paid any attention, you would have known I said I’d be joining her this _afternoon_.”

Ah. That’s on Erik, then.

Shrugging his shoulders, he offers a contrite, “Oops?”

“You’re such a prick.” Before Erik can reply that he isn’t the only one who fits that description, Charles’ lips twitch and he adds, “But, boy, do you have some pipes.”

He doesn’t just mean Erik’s singing ability. So what if, when he really gets into the song, his gift reaches for the nearest metal and makes it hum? It isn’t as if Erik broke them.

He feels himself flush anyway. “That’s not- I didn’t-”

He trails off, only for the next verse to fill the silence.

 _Touch him_  
With the gentleness you feel inside  
Your love can’t be denied  
The truth will set you free  
You’ll have what’s meant to be  
All in time you’ll see

“I had no idea you were such a romantic,” Charles observes with a shit-eating grin.

“Don’t be an ass,” Erik hisses.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a spoilsport.”

“I swear, Charles. I will magnetize your chair to a truck.”

“Erik, my friend, you couldn’t bring yourself to magnetize my chair so the break wouldn’t work when you were actually angry. So I’m afraid your empty threats don’t scare me.”

“What if I made you pancakes?”

Whatever retort was about to fly out, Charles swallows. “Peanut butter and banana pancakes?”

“Only if you want to go to store and buy bananas. Otherwise you’ll have to settle for blueberry.”

“Blueberry it is.”

If Erik thought that would be the end of it, he would be wrong.

As he mixes the batter, he feels Charles in his head. Knowing what his roommate is looking for and why, Erik merely sighs, resigned to his fate, and pushes his memory of the song’s lyrics and music toward the damn telepath.

By the time the griddle is hot enough for the pancakes, Charles is cheerfully singing along with the music.

Erik rolls his eyes and pours another ladle’s worth of batter onto the griddle.

Charles doesn’t let up his singing even when the pancakes are ready, and despite himself, Erik finds he doesn’t really mind. He even catches himself singing along a few times before immediately biting his tongue. It’s too late, though; Charles had already heard him and begun grinning.

The singing stops while they eat at least.

… only to be replaced by the requisite teasing.

“You’ve got a lovely voice,” Charles says in between shoveling in bites. “I don’t know why you don’t sing more often.”

“I don’t like you.”

“But I like you.”

Erik scowls and looks down at his plate. The pancakes don’t taste worse for Charles making fun of him like they ought to. He should be angry and affronted and not at all hungry. Instead, he’s working on his fourth tasty pancake and ready for a fifth.

Not half a pancake later, Charles asks, “Hey, Erik?”

“No.”

“Do you take requests?”

“What did I just say?”

“I could find another Streisand song for you, if that’s required. The soundtrack to _Funny Girl_ , maybe?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I disagree.”

The teasing- and _Tell Him_ \- continue until, finally, Charles has to leave for his train. They trade their usual barbs as he rolls past, and Erik is about ready to start making dinner when he realizes Charles is waiting in the doorway.

“Charles? Everything all right?”

His friend nods, and a moment later, he turns in his chair enough to face Erik. “You do have a nice voice, you know,” he says softly. “I really wouldn’t mind if you sang more often.”

Then he’s pushing off, rolling quickly out the door, and Erik is left alone with the single track, muffled soundtrack to their day.

 _I don’t think I could endure_  
If I let him walk away  
When I have so much to say


	16. radical factions, part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, same canon divergence au as chapter 9  
> original prompt: Cherik angstttt plz

The news runs a story that shatters everything Erik had been building toward.

“We have breaking news from the White House,” the cramped image of a man says, its voice bland as the black and white display, as Erik settles himself on the sofa for a half hour of respite. “A recording from a portion of the confrontation between the president and the terrorist known as Professor X has been released.” Erik snaps up from where he’d been hunched over the cold box, his search for Kitty’s favorite jam forgotten. “Though it asks more questions than it answers, we will play it for you now, along with a transcript for those in need of it.”

As the story continues, Erik finds himself grateful for the dual input. He can’t quite trust his ears, and his comprehension of written English remains short of the mark. Together, though, they make a compelling case that he isn’t making this up.

 

> _[Recorder clicks on.]_  
>  **  
> ** **President Nixon:** You really think you can win a war against us? We have the strongest military on the planet!  
>  **  
> ** **Professor X:** Our military is indeed powerful. Our military- despite your endeavors against us, American mutants do consider this country our home. As for winning a confrontation… I know we can. Were you to set your young men against us, the victory would be ours, pyrrhic though it would be. Ah, you doubt me. That’s the problem with picking on children, Mr. President. You get used to winning without a fight. I am no frightened child for you to bully. You think you know something about controlling mutants? [Laughs.] No, sir. You have only just dipped your toes in the kiddie pool. My waters run far deeper.  
>  **  
> ** **PN:** I don’t care for metaphors. Show me what it is you think you can do.  
>  **  
> ** **PX:** As you wish.  
>    
>  _[Silence.]_  
>    
>  _[Distant crashing.]_  
>    
>  _[PN yells.]_  
>  **  
> ** **PN:** Stop! Good God, stop!
> 
> _**PX:** Already? But that was hardly a minute of a single day. Mutant children endure months, years of that._
> 
> _**PN** : Don’t do this. Have mercy, please. Just… have have mercy._
> 
> __**  
> ** **PX** : What gives you the right to sit here and speak to me of mercy? [Sighs.] Where was yours, Mr. President? Where was your mercy when you ordered your own people forced into cages?  
>  _Admit your guilt. Tell your people how much blood you have needlessly spilled. Do that, and I will see what mercy I have left._
> 
> _**PN** : That isn’t- Absolutely not! I would never- You're a terrorist!_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PX:** I thought you might say that. [Pauses.] Do you know, I don’t hate you? My telepathy won’t allow it. I feel your lust for power. Your excitement about your children- what they’ll do, the sort of people they will become. Your fear that America will falter under your command. All you feel, I know. I wish I were like you, Mr. President. I want desperately to be able to dismiss my fellow man as dirt to be scraped off my boots. Unfortunately, no matter how hateful they are, I can’t escape people’s humanity. You are like the most intricate snow globes- you have worlds within you! I would much rather be welcomed to marvel at all the wonders you contain than fight and break you._  
>  ****
> 
> _**PN:** So don’t! You don’t have to do anything rash. We can talk this out, find common ground. Peace is still a possibility-_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PX:** [Laughs.]_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PN:** What’s so funny?_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PX:** Nothing. Nothing at all._  
>  ****
> 
> _[Silence.]_
> 
> _**PN:** You don’t want war. You don’t want peace. Are you ever going to tell me what you _do _want?_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PX:** I already told you._  
>  ****
> 
> _**PN:** Equality for mutants, yes. It’s impossible. Americans aren’t fools, Mr. X. They won’t overlook how unnatural you mutants are. The Blacks aren’t equal. The Jews aren’t. The damn Mexicans have been at our borders since they gave us Texas. But you think your freak show friends are going to jump to the front of the line?_
> 
> _[Silence.]_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PX:** Do you have many friends, Mr. President?_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PN:** Yes, of course. I don't see what you're getting at-_  
>  ****
> 
> _**PX:** Are there any you care for so deeply, if anything were to happen to them, it would break your heart?_
> 
> _**PN:** What’s that got to do with anything?_
> 
> _**PX:**  Well, sir, I have one such friend. He is… very dear to me. Before you ask, you care because if there is one thing you can rely on a telepath to do, it is to care. We feel what you feel. My friend’s pain, his anger, are as much a part of me as his joy._  
>  _He doesn’t know this, but it was his mind that showed me the strength of hope. I touched it and saw a boy endure being stripped of everything he loved. All of it. Every single godforsaken thing a child ought to take for granted went up in flames, and he was made to bury the ashes. Children are so new, you see, everything is a lesson. and pain and anger make for excellent teachers, I’m afraid. My friend learned their lessons perfectly. But it isn’t hate that moves him. All his schemes- and he has many, all of them disastrous- are born out of love for his fellow mutants. He sees the possibility of a kinder world born from the ashes of this one. And why not? What have we given him but suffering?_  
>  _I see him rarely these days. We have a bit of an ongoing row, you understand. He is of the mind that a war on humanity is our best option, and he was prepared to do it all himself if necessary. Considering you are alive and well, as is our country, it’s rather obvious that I disagreed. Painful though it is, I’m glad for our disagreement. It has given me badly needed clarity._
> 
> _**PN:** What are babbling about? Clarity? You’re a terrorist! A radical! Your friend wanted blood, so you’re getting it for him?_
> 
> _**PX:** Like talking to a wall sometimes… I’m telling you I _ don’t _want blood. Neither of us does. All I do, Mr. President, I do not out of hate for humans but out of love for mutants. For my friend, whose hope is failing. I am here to find him more._  
>  _No more talk of mercy, Mr. President. Humanity had too little of it to prevent an abomination then and has too little now. You have forced a good man and countless others to relive their tragedy in a place that promised them better. As for your earlier point, m_ _utants aren’t queue jumping. I intend to push this country to fulfil its promise to us all: America, the land of peace and tolerance. This is what I want, and I will have it one way or another. You can help me or not. I would prefer the former, but in the case of the latter, I strongly suggest you stay out of my way._

The recorder clicks off, and the transcript disappears. In its stead sits the anchor, whose eyes are as hard as his accent as he takes over. Erik scarcely hears a word of the human’s analysis. His heart is hammering in his ears. His hands are clumsy as he fumbles with his plate, hardly managing to set it on the table before the shakes set in with force.

That was Charles’ voice. Erik would know it anywhere. It can’t possibly be him. Erik is certain he’s never heard Charles speak like that. Unyielding, laden with the certainty of his own strength- who was that man? He can’t possibly be the same one who came back from a simple shopping trip with seven bottles of wine, which he pushed at Erik, hastily explaining he bought them from a store run by a Jewish man who promised they were kosher. How did that unmistakable threat of war come from the fool who jumped into the Atlantic after a stranger? Where did Charles, who courted Erik’s friendship like a desperate teenager with chess and sweet promises, hide this side of himself?

His words are hardly the same as openly taking the lives of the humans who have them chained like animals, but for Charles to have faced the leader of their country and demanded acceptance for mutants… It sounds like something Mystique would do, but that wasn’t her. She can mimic a man’s body flawlessly, but her mind remains her own. Her mind is like Erik’s; they have no use for waiting, no patience for the slow machine to grind the way they want. Had that been her, the tape would have been the president being forced to sign a law into being, then either his death or a grand exit.

The man on the tape hadn’t made any more threats than any statesman. He had been calm. A negotiator. Someone who could be reasoned with.

Someone who nevertheless made a president tremble- for Erik.

What did he do to his friend?


	17. cosmopolitan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, modern universe  
> original prompt: cherik prompt: young charles gets drunk at his mother's country club and finally works up the courage to speak to young erik, who works there.

Charles makes the drive up from Harvard to the mansion reluctantly. He would much rather stay in Boston over the summer than return to New York. It's hard enough to get along with Kurt and Cain when the weather isn't making everybody's balls stick to their legs. He won't even have Raven to distract him- she's off at boarding school and managed to upset Kurt so thoroughly, he forbade her from coming home. As if she would want to leave her friends and come back to their mess of a family. As his university tuition depends on Kurt's goodwill, Charles has no such out.

He arrives just before noon, right on time to catch his mother swanning from the porch to the Mustang.

"Come along, Charles," his mother calls breezily as Kurt looks on from the driver's seat. She can barely stay upright, and her wide smile is crooked. "We're going to the country club."

"But I just-"

"Now, young man."

Biting back the urge to argue, Charles gets back in his car and falls in behind his stepfather.

The country club isn't far from the house, but the drive is long enough for Charles to affirm to himself that he _will_ be getting hammered, and he _will_ have a nice time. It's not as if Kurt and Mother will be paying him any mind. Even Cain will be too busy chatting up the girls who work at the club to bother Charles.

He follows Kurt, Cain, and Sharon through the gate, then gets out and follows them inside. He's careful not to fall behind- if his mother decides he's sulking, she won't leave him be all afternoon. Despite knowing that, it's a struggle for him not to scuff his shoes or wander off- until one of the guys in the tight white polos comes over.

Tall and lean, with his hair slicked smoothly away from his face, he's easily one of the hottest men Charles has ever seen.

 _I_ , he thinks weakly, _cannot handle this sober._

The guy grabs five chairs and leads them to the pool area where he spreads them out precisely. He doesn't need to be told to go grab an umbrella for Sharon; as soon as the chairs are set up, he heads off in search of one- which he promises will match the chairs, a statement that makes Sharon blow him a kiss.

Charles subtly scoots his chair a little farther away from his family. They don't notice, of course. Cain is already headed into the pool, Kurt has his book out, and Sharon is staring after their helper- who arrives a few minutes later with an umbrella as white as the chairs. He sets it up over Sharon deftly, and only ducks his head when Sharon gushes and calls him a gorgeous young man.

"Can I get any of you something to drink?" he asks smoothly. His accent is an odd, muted mess that nonetheless curls smokily around his vowels.

Sharon goes for another Long Island Iced Tea, Kurt gets some poncy microbrew, and Charles, after a moment of hesitation, goes for a cocktail. His mother gives him an odd look, but it quickly fades as the man tells them it will be just a moment.

"That must be the new boy... what's his name?" Sharon ponders aloud as he walks away. "Albert? Alan? No, no, it had an e. Erin? Oh, I know. Erik. Erik Lehnsherr."

"You know him?" Charles asks as casually as he can.

Sharon's head lolls toward him. She lifts one perfectly groomed eyebrow. As if she would know the help. "Hardly. But I was talking to Frost- you know his daughter Emma, don't you? Tall girl, very... hm... poised? Well, I was talking to her father, and he mentioned hiring a new gofer. Poor thing has quite the tale of woe," Sharon says with a heavy sigh, "but apparently he's a dutiful worker despite his unfortunate roots."

Charles nods, absently filing the information away. Erik is coming back with a tray of drinks. They hardly move as he gracefully navigates the crowded poolside. He reaches Sharon first, who silently takes her blatant desire to be drunk with deceptively dainty fingers, then moves onto Kurt, who takes his bottle with a grunt. When he gets to Charles, Erik holds out the tray just as he did before. Charles grabs his drink a touch too fast, but he puts on his most charming smile as he thanks Erik.

The smile he gets in return is fierce: large white teeth are bared as Erik's generous mouth parts in an almost feral expression. It disappears almost immediately, replaced by a far more suitable bland smile as Erik backs away and promises to return soon.

Charles watches him go with a surreal feeling. It takes him a long moment to put together the clenching of his gut with his desire to keep watching Erik as he walks away, but he gets there in the end.

 _Fuck me_ , he thinks tiredly. Now is not the time to develop a crush on anyone, let alone an employee of the Frosts. He has to go back to Boston to finish his degree, then he's going to go to London for his advanced work. A fling would be fun, but he's tried them often enough to know that he would just end up overinvesting.

Fighting the urge to get up and throw himself into the pool, Charles takes a deep swallow of his cocktail and settles in for an uncomfortable afternoon.

 

**_xx_ **

 

As promised, Erik comes back, and he isn't alone- oh no, no, no. He's come with a tray of fresh drinks for them. Charles accepts his gratefully. Erik doesn't favor him with another of his fierce smiles, and Charles finds himself feeling bereft as he watches the perfect curves of Erik's retreating ass.

If she were here, Raven would tell him to go for it. But considering she's currently dating a man who had a crush on her for nearly a year before she decided she liked him, her advice is highly suspect.

So Charles keeps his tongue firmly in his mouth and sticks to sipping at his drink. And watching Erik work.

He has uncommon grace, Charles decides quickly- with such long legs, he was probably a clumsy stork of a boy, but as an adult, Erik moves like a dancer. He navigates the crowded pool area deftly. Even laden with platters and full drinks, he twists and dodges around the milling crowd without fumbling.

When he bends over to pick up a dropped pair of sunglasses that probably cost more than a month's salary, Charles watches his pants pull tight the curve of a firm backside with interest. Somehow, Erik makes the unflattering white uniform trousers look good. He should look awkward in the matching white polo with the country club's name embroidered on the breast; instead, Charles' eyes are drawn relentlessly to the firm curves of Erik's arms. The length of his throat. The ginger glow of his immaculately styled hair.

The burn of alcohol in Charles' drink is followed by a hazy feeling of contentment. He imagines he's a cat with a belly full of cream, stretched out in the sunlight. Indolent and sated, he stretches widely and lets his eyes drift closed.

When he wakes up, someone is shaking his shoulder.

Blinking off the vestiges of sleep, Charles peers over the top of his crooked sunglasses and into the the patient face of Erik.

"Oh," he says stupidly as he glances around and finds his mother and stepfather missing. "I think I fell asleep."

Erik's brows climb toward his hairline. "You did. You've been like this for over two hours. I didn't want you to get sunburned."

Somehow, Charles gets the feeling that this was not something Erik did of his own volition. "Erm, thank you," he says, awkwardly trying to get his heavy limbs to cooperate and turn himself over. He ends up lying on his side, facing Erik, and exhausted.

"Do you need some help?" Erik asks, a touch of humor coloring his voice.

Charles blows out a breath. _Excellent first impression._ "Apparently I do."

Erik nods, and a moment later, wide hands nudge Charles gently onto his front.

"You're very kind," Charles observes.

Erik snorts. "That's not the adjective people typically choose."

"No?" Charles thinks about that for a minute. "It's hot, isn't it?"

"It's summertime."

"I meant you. The adjective. Not the weather."

"Ah."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic."

"You're not the first person to hit on me."

Charles gives that a think before sighing and shaking his head. "Oops?" he offers in apology. He's an excellent flirt usually, but between the drink and Erik himself, Charles is off his game. Way off.

Erik makes noise somewhere between a huff and a laugh. "You've been more polite than most, and you don't look half bad, so I'll tell you what: stick around for my shift to end, and I'll let you buy me coffee."

Charles swallows. "Very good."

"Do try not to die of heatstroke before then," Erik advises. Charles nods, and Erik gives his calf a friendly pat as he gets to his feet. "Until later, Mr. Xavier."

Then he's off, silently gathering up empty glasses and speaking lowly with the couple next to Charles. They laugh as he leaves, clearly familiar with him, and Charles wonders briefly if maybe he imagined the exchange. But as he watches Erik return, there's an extra bounce in his step. A wider stretch of his private grin. When he catches Charles watching, Erik throws him a wink.

Slowly, it dawns on Charles that maybe he's in over his head with Erik. The man clearly has sharp edges- that smile earlier hasn't been forgotten.

Rather than retreat as he usually would, Charles finds himself wanting to accept the challenge. Whoever Erik Lehnsherr is, Charles wants to meet him face on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last of them for the moment. feel free to send me prompts in the comments, otherwise the updates to this will most likely be excerpts of fics i don't have the time or energy to write in their entirety


	18. eat me raw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, historical (ripper street) au  
> for the familiar: charles is in edmund reid's role; erik is in deborah goren's  
> cw: antisemitism

Charles met Erik Lehnsherr during a case. A missing Jewess, her husband murdered, and the children, all too little to be of use, left covered in blood and wailing. Cassidy took a shine to them and kept them with him at the desk, but they could not stay there forever. Until the mother could be found or if the worst should come to pass, they needed somewhere to stay.

It was Miss Salvadore who gave them the name and a address. A Jewish orphanage run by a refugee in one of the dirtiest parts of the city, it was nonetheless a place of good repute according to the whore mistress.

"He's a smart one, Lehnsherr," Angel warned. "Don't try to play games with him, Inspector. Just say your piece."

What Angel did not warn him of- what she never would have thought to prepare him for- was the feeling of sudden kinship Charles felt with the man, and the worrisome heat in his belly when Lehnsherr first appeared.

A tall, lean man with unsettling pale eyes, Lehnsherr filled the doorway to his orphanage. He was dressed smartly, his clothes cut and tailored well if no longer fashionably. When he spoke, his words were almost chirps in his Yiddish accent.

He took the children in without argument or bargaining. All Charles' attempts at discussing recompense were denied firmly.

"I would not turn away my own kind, Mr. Xavier," he said as he balanced the smallest child on his hip. "Let alone such little ones. To see them safe is payment enough."

It soon transpired that the mother was found dead, and Charles found himself returning to the orphanage in search of further information on Whitechapel's Jewish underbelly. Though he was concise with his answers- providing no more information than required- it was Erik who broke the case for them. His ability to translate the woman's diary and reveal that she had a stalker, along with a description of the man, was critical to identifying and apprehending the culprit.

Erik's knowledge of the shadowy parts of Whitechapel became invaluable. He was consulted on nearly every case in some form or another. So it was not a mystery when Charles found himself staying over at the orphanage more and more frequently, preferring the company of Erik and the children to the idea of returning to the yawning maw of his empty home.

What is a mystery is how they went from Charles sleeping on a blanket on the floor to climbing into bed with Erik, his friend's backside cradled against his hips, one of Charles' arms slung over Erik's thin waist. So, too, is the pain in Charles' chest as he listens to the soft sounds of Erik breathing. He feels a million miles away from sleep, every movement of Erik's breathing sending a rush of energy through him. This is not something Charles would do with Cassidy or Summers. Nor is it something he did with his sister, even when they were young.

"Go to sleep, Charles," Erik grumbles. "I can feel you thinking, and the action disturbs me."

"Apologies, my dear friend," Charles replies, bitter sarcasm shaping the words.

Erik only huffs and snuggles further under the covers, a difficult feat for a man of his frame. It presses him harder against Charles, and to his horror, Charles' body responds to the sensation in a way that is decidedly more than friendly.

_"Charles."_

"I can't help thinking, Erik. It's what I do."

"Could you at least stop playing with my shirt, then? I realize you're used to thick-skinned Englishwomen, but some of us are more sensitive."

Now aware of what he was doing, Charles stops immediately.

"Thank you. I have an honest living to make tomorrow, unlike some people."

It's a familiar jibe, one that washes off Charles' back easily- and, oddly, soothes some of the restless thoughts swirling around in his head. He lets out a breath, pushes away the creeping doubts of propriety and what people would do if he and Erik were found like this, and settles in to enjoy the warmth pouring off Erik's body against the frigid winter air. He can worry about the rest later. For now, he needs to sleep. And with the gentle rise and fall of Erik's chest to lull him, Charles does.


	19. my heart is dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> m, same historical au as the previous chapter  
> cw for graphic depictions of gore
> 
> this chapter's title and the previous one's are from bennet drake in episode seven of season four

Erik takes one look at the body and knows this is going to be a case he can't solve with his skills alone.

"Cassidy!" he shouts. "Get the American- and be quick about it!"

No doubt the man is elbow-deep in whores or cheap drink, but Erik needs the man and his expertise. Decapitations are a difficult thing on their own. Decapitations coupled with general dismemberment and sick... Well, that sounds like Xavier's sort of thing.

It takes far too long for Cassidy to show up with their wayward Pinkerton, but the boy does get the man to the scene.

"That," Xavier announces as he peeks under the sheet and quickly pulls his head away, "is disgusting."

"Excellent observation," Erik says drily. "Well worth the sergeant's salary I pay you."

"Must you be so cantankerous this early in the day?"

"It is an hour past noon, Mr. Xavier."

"So it is, Inspector. I do not see why, sir, you cannot wait until nightfall to be a brute. Now, if you will let me get about my  work...?"

"Hurry it up," Erik says with a sigh. "We can't hold the crowds much longer."

Xavier nods and, in renewed grimness, sets about the dark task of collecting the corpse and the evidence that will, should HaShem favor them, reveal the man responsible for the act.

 

**_xx_ **

 

They do find him. Summers gets stabbed in the leg and Xavier's friend, the madam of the whorehouse, gets roughed up, but they find the killer- and his dark lair, with all its grotesque evidence of earlier crimes.

Erik is not a man unaccustomed to violence. He has worked H Division for years; he has walked Whitechapel's filthy, neglected streets since he was child. There is not an act of degradation he has not known.

The loss of his children and his wife, in different ways but loss nonetheless, hardened his heart. He would not be moved even by the darkest of humanity's depravity. He was resolved to be its sentinel, unmoved in his hunt for its villains.

Yet the contents of Sebastian Shaw's home sicken him. The pieces of gore strewn about, the collected viscera in jars...

Xavier abandons his examination with a shuddering exhale. Erik watches him close his eyes and tilt his head back. He says nothing, does nothing. Merely breathes, deep and long.

When he opens his eyes once more, he turns his head toward Erik. His footsteps hardly make a sound as he crosses the room and lays a hand on Erik's shoulder. "Come away, Erik," he says lowly. "There is naught can be done here now. We caught the bastard. He will swing for this, and his victims will have their justice. But you must come away now, old friend."

Too tired to resist, Erik allows himself to be guided outside, and into the waiting carriage. Xavier speaks to the driver for a moment, his words a senseless mumble to Erik's ears, before he ducks inside. He takes the spot beside Erik rather than his usual place across. They sit, pressed together from knee to shoulder, and in a rush, the numbness that had settled over him earlier dissolves. Horror at what he saw takes its place, and Erik's vision disappears into blackness.

"Head down," Xavier says. Pressure on his nape encourages Erik to bend and place his head between his legs. "And breathe, old friend. Just breathe."

Erik does, with gasping, shaking breaths. He closes his eyes, focuses on the circles Xavier is rubbing on the side of Erik's neck with his thumb. It is a comforting action- one to be eschewed normally, but welcome in this moment. He feels himself sway toward his surgeon. Charles, in his uncanny manner, seems to understand what Erik seeks without being told; he clasps Erik's head to his chest and holds it there.

"You are remarkably cold sometimes, my dear Erik," Charles murmurs. "It is easy to forget that this is but a mask and that you are soft inside. A man of peace. I do not know how you do this terrible job."

Erik would roll his eyes at the sentiment, but he finds himself tolerating the care. He does not protest when Charles runs fingers through his hair. Nor does he mind when Charles continues his murmuring, speaking warm nonsense against Erik's temple.

It is a spell, of some sort. That must be the reason why Erik lifts his head and, in a moment of insanity, presses his mouth to Charles'. It is hardly a kiss, more a pressing of flesh, but Charles moves his mouth against him, turning the press into a proper kiss. Erik moves closer, getting as close as he can.

Charles tastes of ale and cigarettes. His true poison is the drink; it is always around him. The cigarettes are a new addition- one Erik shares with him. The kick of a cigarette is unlike the thrill that runs through him when Charles makes a soft, muted sound against him.

A horse neighs, and the spell, such as it is, breaks.

Erik pulls away abruptly, awareness flooding him. They are in public, they are men, they are policemen, they could die for this... Charles' lips are red and swollen, shiny with spit. His hair, where Erik's hand moved unbidden, is a mess. Erik himself must look of a sort.

"Go back to the station, Inspector," Xavier says brusquely. "I will return when I have finished collecting the evidence here."

Then he is gone, and the carriage is moving, away from Shaw's carnage, away from Xavier, away from what they did. And Erik, as he stares blankly out the window, is uncertain how to feel about this.

Instinct says this was another loss.


	20. private people

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, pre-slash, modern/person of interest au

There are two lessons in (the as yet unpublished) _Professor X’s Handbook for New Heroes_.

One: Never forget that you won’t save everyone.

Two: Try anyway.

 

×××

 

Despite the ridiculous name, Magneto is as discreet as they come. He navigates the library’s blacked out halls with the same ease he has when crossing sun-bright Manhattan’s streets. His secrets he buries in pieces, the fragments scattered in caches across his mind. In every way, he is as exceptional as his blacked-out file had suggested- which is why Charles chose him. Intelligent, physically capable, and discreet: three qualities in an associate Charles had required as much as he had dreaded the combination. And rightfully so. A man strong enough to survive the worst situations, smart enough to read between the lines of his assignments, and careful enough not to get caught would never be content simply following instructions. If ever there was not a place someone like that, a man who would dig and dig until he learned enough to endanger them all, it is in the Library. But Cerebro had picked Erik Lehnsherr’s file and rejected all Charles’ alternatives, and whatever its failings, Cerebro has always chosen reliable assets.

So the mistake, Charles knows, was not only his own, but a beginner’s misstep. He should have known Magneto would be more creative than his predecessors. Charles had, in fact, planned on his partner being a stronger force, yet here they are.

This morning’s prying comes in the form of a Styrofoam cup thrust at him, steaming enticingly in the cold library, as Erik waits for Charles’ acknowledgement of the… gift? Request for information? He’s been waiting a while now, likely spending it studying Charles for clues. It’s frustrating. Charles has never been gifted at hiding his reactions. He never had call to be. He doesn’t even know if he should hide them from Erik. What harm could there be in letting him know how Charles likes his tea?

Every question is important, though. Every answer could bring him closer to truths Charles isn’t ready for him to have. The situation is impossible. Charles doesn’t know what the right thing to do is.

He’s still staring at the cup like he’s never seen one before when Magneto tires of waiting. “English breakfast,” he says, almost coaxing. “Milk, one sugar.”

 _Closer this time, but you’re not there quite yet_. Charles should refuse the cup- better not to encourage the behavior- but then, a small victory might give Magneto something to ruminate over. Magneto has a bad case of tunnel vision; a minor victory could distract that unstoppable, one-track mind of his for a while. And this could conceivably be a nice gesture, not a way of digging for information. It would be rude not to accept. Autumn has been colder than usual this year, and Charles’ numb fingers would appreciate the warmth...

Magneto hands the cup over without comment but watches Charles take a sip with obvious interest. His own cup is wrapped securely in the grasp of one of his long-fingered hands, given as much attention as the growing silence.

“Thank you for the gesture,” Charles says when it stretches too long, startling Magneto from his staring, “but I called because we’ve got another mutant in need, not for a social visit.”

In a blink, his associate has straightened up and turned his attention to the screen. Nothing on it will have any meaning for him without even a picture for Cerebro’s latest find, as he well knows, but Magneto looks at every code regardless.

His thoughts are whirring loudly, and Charles lets himself wish he weren’t barred from peeking. What little he’s seen of Magneto’s mind has been fascinating. The way he takes in information and breaks it down… Truly an intriguing process. And all those nooks and crannies in the deceptively smooth sphere of his consciousness, little pockets of thoughts squirreled away. To be allowed even a minute’s exploration…

With no revelations from the screen, Hank’s code still unbreakable to the uninitiated, Magneto huffs. “What do we have today, then?”

“Not one you’ll like, I’m afraid,” Charles admits as he reluctantly sets his cup down.

“I don’t like any of them.”

“True, but you’ll not like this one more than usual. He’s young, not yet eighteen. Foster care, separated from his brother, and no mutation listed-”

“Powerful, then, and destructive,” Erik surmises. Absently, he shifts his weight, pulling his thoughts deeper into his mind where Charles can’t see, and ends up leaning on Charles. Tall as he is, Erik’s hip is too far up to rest it on the chair’s arm. If he finds Charles’ shoulder a less desirable perch, he keeps it to himself. “They mean to weaponize him.”

“Almost certainly.” Cerebro’s reach is extensive, but it does have limitations. “We’ll have to consider the possibility that he will resist our attempts to free him, but from what Cerebro gave me, I find it unlikely.”

“And where does Cerebro propose we begin?” Charles is quick to smother his smile but not quick enough to keep Erik from seeing it. The edges of his frown lift, moving from contempt to puzzlement. “Professor?”

Charles gives one of Erik’s enviable thighs a pat. One ginger brow shoots up, but with no protest forthcoming, only a sharpening of Erik’s gaze, Charles is slow to remove his hand. “There’s an armored truck scheduled to arrive at Rikers this afternoon. Strangely, the manifest says it’s carrying food.”

Magneto’s bark of laughter shakes them both.

 

×××

 

“Three minutes,” Charles sighs as he takes in the disaster on the security feed. “I was gone for three minutes, and in that time, you managed not only to get into a gunfight in a warehouse but, if I’m not mistaken, break into that warehouse by driving a truck through it. I’m not sure if I’m impressed or sickened.”

Magneto ought to be harder to hear as he purrs across the line, “But, Professor, it was crash the truck here or in the Hudson, and I know how you feel about littering.”

“You’re nowhere near the Hudson,” Charles drawls, “but nice try. That still doesn’t explain the firefight, by the way.”

“To be fair, they started it. I couldn’t just turn my back; they’re armed. You made such a fuss last time I got shot. And that was just a clip.”

“A clip doesn’t require surgery, Magneto-” A shout, this one closer and markedly happier than the others, cuts off the rest of Charles' rebuke.

Horror displaces frustration with the dawning of the implications of that gleeful noise.

_He didn't._

“Tell me that isn’t our mutant.”

Magneto remains silent for a beat too long. He’s still alive, his breath coming across the line in heavy puffs- one of many unasked for reminders that they aren’t young anymore. Forty isn’t so distant these days, and that’s a big number even for people who don’t run around dodging bullets and their own government most days.

A line of fire surges up Charles' throat, not content to keep its burning in his chest. Reaching for the antacids- someday he'll learn to stop letting Magneto foist takeout on him; the heartburn stays with him for weeks- he gives his partner the time it takes to chew a handful of Tums before repeating himself.

Magneto’s shushing isn’t quite fast enough to cover the excited whoop their mutant lets out.

“I thought we agreed Detective Salvatore would meet you and take Havok to Darwin at the safe house?”

“That was the plan, yes. Then the men with ceramic guns showed up. So the plan changed.”

Before Charles can reply, another round of gunfire bursts across the line. Magneto and what Charles now knows is not a floater but a suspiciously black-clad adolescent dash across the screen, exiting the warehouse in a hail of bullets. Instead of checking the body count, Charles switches from the warehouse to the street CCTV in time to watch Magneto switch off the earpiece and tug Havok- Alex Summers, seventeen, parents out of the picture, impressive trail of chaos- close. Whatever he tells the boy- clearly, this is a _no-Charleses-allowed_ conversation- it makes Alex snap to attention.

Charles could listen in telepathically, but there is a reason he and Magneto use the earwig. More than one, really. Besides letting them communicate, it’s kept the abominable helmet out of Charles’ sight, and that’s good enough. When Magneto wishes to include him, Charles will know. Until then, Charles isn’t a petulant child, unable to handle being excluded a conversation.

Besides, there have been some anomalies in Cerebro’s behavior he’s been meaning to examine. Unfortunately, he suspects they’re due to Hank’s modifications, and frankly, this level of coding was never his strong suit.

Sighing, he grabs his glasses and puts them on.


	21. homo homini lupus est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, gore cw, forever au

Charles dies on a Tuesday.

This time.

 

**_xx_ **

 

This is his fifty-somethingeth November death. An old one but not a bad one, all things considered. A gunshot to the head is a comparatively kind way to go in his experience. His twitchy mugger-turned-accidental-murderer will lose more sleep over it than Charles.

 

**_xx_ **

 

He wakes up some hours later in the Atlantic, naked but alive and well.

 _At least it's still dark enough no one ought to see me,_ he thinks, more than a little rueful as he begins his short, watery trek back to land. As much as Erik would probably enjoy arresting him for public indecency- _again_ \- Charles has a reputation to maintain. No parent wants their child taught by a man with a record for exposing himself, no matter how unintentionally.

There's a payphone nearby, and Darwin ought to be on shift. No one stirs as Charles dashes from sand to street to phone box. His stash of quarters is getting low, he realizes as he reaches for a handful, and he makes a mental note to refill it as he enters the number for New York's best cabbie. Luckily for him, Darwin is already on shift and nearby, so all Charles has to do is wait and try not to be noticed.

For the most part, he manages.

At one point, a woman saunters past, only to pause and turn back. Even in the weak light her amusement is clear. Not one of America's more puritanical citizens, but then, street walkers rarely are. She doesn't approach him, merely gives him a bird once-over before getting back to her commute.

It takes Charles a moment to fit the pieces together. _Of course,_ he realizes, _she thinks I'm a john who got rolled_. Naked, fidgety, unable to look away from her. What else could he be? An immortal man still weak to the female form despite the centuries? Of course not. To her he's just another pervert, if a quiet one.

By the time his ride shows up, Charles is working himself up into a good sulk. A bad habit of his, followed by nostalgia and, once-upon-a-time, too much lager, he's so busy contemplating his failings he doesn't notice Darwin until the man knocks on the glass. He's got an odd look on his face, one of the many expressions Charles delights in not understanding, where his brows creep up his forehead but the rest of his expression remains bland.

"You all right there, Professor?" he asks once Charles has the door open enough to take the offered gym bag. The monstrosity flashes an unholy green under the streetlight. Raven must be upset with him again, though what terrible thing he did to earn its contents escapes him.

Tight trousers, a tight shirt he suspects is hers from the dip of the neckline, _neon_ yellow scarf, briefs in a blinding shade of orange he is almost positive he's never seen before, the horrid loafers she knows pinch his feet, and no socks. Either she hates him or, worse, she wants him to, "Party, Charles! Like it's 1776, and there's Tories to hunt!"

Darwin manages not to laugh at him outright, which is a blessing, though he does grin the whole way to Columbia. No chatter, just a wide, shit-eating grin Charles is too happy to see on him to fuss over. It's still going strong when they pull up and Darwin twists around to grab something from the back.

Reclaiming his briefcase, Charles returns Darwin's sloppy salute and dashes off to work.

For Charles, who has upwards of two centuries' experience in not-dying, this has become routine. Dull, even, given that getting caught running about with his kit off used to have far harsher punishments. He could almost enjoy his odd life, were it not for how long he's had it.

Every rebirth is a disappointment, yet hope springs eternal. Each aborted death only feeds it, turning his spring to a flood.

(Raven hates when he mentions his wish to die permanently, but she is twenty-two and has the assurance of eternal rest ahead of her.)

Charles' near-deaths come quite infrequently these days- medicine has grown by leaps and bounds, and he has had the honor or witnessing it- but they never last long. He always returns to the land of the living surrounded by water, baptized into eternal damnation. Living in New York City, this usually means the Atlantic Ocean, but sometimes he finds himself bobbing about in the Hudson.

If he were a less immortal man, Charles might worry about radioactive sludge or growing an extra set of crab limbs. All that waste... There must be something poisonous lurking in the Hudson's murky depths. He might even be tempted to blame the river for his situation, but he was born into his undeath far from here.

As for the people who know about his condition, Raven and Darwin- brought into the fold by virtue of having seen Charles die then turn up not at all corpse-like- are the only ones still alive.

Some days, that seems the crueler burden.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Charles is in the middle of deciphering one enterprising student's scattered logic when he hears the scrape of a chair and discovers, belatedly, that he isn't alone in the classroom.

"Is this a torture device?"

It isn't an uncommon complaint. Most of his students have wound up staring at their notes and scratching their heads at some point. Poor Hank nearly tore his hair out over his last lab. Bright students that they are, usually all Charles has to do is give them a bit of a nudge, maybe reframe the question, and they put the pieces together.

The man he looks up and catches squinting suspiciously at the gel electrophoresis equipment, however, is not a student. Nor is he a colleague, at least in the sense that he doesn't work at Columbia.

Detective Erik Lehnsherr is one of New York's finest and not about to swap careers. (A loss for academia, that. Lehnsherr has an extraordinary mind. the detective is no academic, though; his brilliance is in the empirical rather than the theoretical. He is never at rest, impatient to move and do and fight. He would never be content containing all that energy to writing papers.)

Skipping past the obvious trap- as if he doesn't know better than to lecture the man on things Erik isn't interested in- Charles sets the papers aside in favor of studying the man.

He's pale and a bit too thin, but those aren't unusual. Nor are the circles under his eyes. The fidgeting, though, is new.

"Unless learning is torture," Charles says, "I'm afraid not. I take it you have a question about a case?"

Lehnsherr smiles. "Very good, Professor. It's almost noon, though, and it's more than one. How about we grab some lunch?" He tilts his head as he asks, and Charles just knows he isn't going to like this.

 

**_xx_ **

 

"This is impossible."

Erik fights a sigh. Xavier has said the same thing at least five times in as many minutes.

"Yet it's what the lab said."

Unimpressed, his consultant takes a vicious bite of his sandwich. "They must have made a mistake," he says, mouth full.

"They ran it three times," Erik reminds him, "with three different analysts. The last wasn't even done by our usual people. It isn't a lab error."

"But this is just... It doesn't happen!" For the first time since Erik handed him the lab results, all three copies, Xavier looks up. The look he fixes on Erik is the picture of academic frustration. "I mean it, Erik. This mutation doesn't exist in the human genome. Most of it fits, but this, right here?" He taps a page. "This is wrong. Not mutation-wrong. This entire section is just... Impossible."

"And that means what for my case?"

"I don't suppose you've heard much about this bogeyman's whereabouts?"

Xavier rolls his eyes. “If I see a monster, I’ll let you know. Until then…” He hesitates. “Is there anything left I can run my own analysis on?”

“I know you don’t want the gory details-” Sure enough, Xavier is already turning green, “-but, Doc, all I’ve got is blood and guts. It took hours to scrape up all the mess-”

“Okay, okay! I got it.” Xavier’s hands shake as pushes his plate away. “Send me some blood, and I’ll see what I can make of it. But I’m not promising you anything new, Detective.”

Erik nods, satisfied that he at least has Xavier looking into things.


	22. rituals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, exorcism au, erik & raven

"Wake up!"

Erik reluctantly blinks his eyes open. Hope, that perhaps he brought someone home last night and simply forgot, flares weakly, only to die when he catches sight of the person sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed.

Groaning, he flips over onto his opposite side, presenting his back to his uninvited guest. "Go away."

"Excuse me?" The voice is as feminine as the form he glimpsed, and irate- just not as much as Erik is. Will be. Once he gets moving. "Hey, asshole. I'm talking to you."

Lifting a hand, Erik points to the sign on the back of his bedroom door.

"'No ghosts before eight AM.' What the hell?"

Erik tugs the covers over his head.

"This is important!" the ghost whines. If it could, no doubt it would yank his blankets off. Too bad spirits can't do that.

"It's always important," Erik grumbles. "Your family will be fine without you in time. Now go away."

A cold breeze soaks through the blankets, and when it speaks, the ghost abandons its pretense of civility.

"I have been stuck in this half-world for more than twenty years!" it howls. "The next world is denied to me. Peace is denied to me. You will listen, medium, or I will _make_ you."

Well, he won't be getting back to sleep now. Tossing the blankets aside, Erik rolls out of bed with a groan.

"You-" he points to the ghost, "-stay here. I'm going to get ready, and I'm not in the mood for company. When I'm done with that, we'll talk."

That said, he heads stiffly foe the bathroom. He ignores the indignant spluttering from behind him. The spirit will learn. If it wants his help, it will play by his rules.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Once he's showered and gotten dressed, Erik is in less of an unhelpful mood. He gestures the ghost of the day to follow as he sets about making breakfast.

"Does this mean you'll help me?" it asks hopefully.

"No." Before he gets another blast of undead rage, Erik holds up a hand. "But I'll let you talk. Maybe you'll convince me."

That seems to pacify it for the moment. Erik uses the break to finish making his coffee and sit down at the table. It puts him lower than the ghost, which is perched on top next to yesterday's paper- the table is small, and he only has one chair- which would be annoying if it weren't funny. The spirit keeps flipping its hair and shifting position, trying to draw his attention away from his bagel.

To keep from laughing in its immaterial face and getting raged on, Erik takes an overlarge bite and chews thoughtfully as he considers his uninvited guest. Either this one is new to the ghost game or taking its first spin in presenting a female form. Or it has done this before and ran into someone less discerning.

Sadly for this one, Erik doesn't get off on the dead. Possibly it's the likelihood that what looks like a young, pretty girl is actually an old, creepy man in disguise.

Ghosts, as his mother once warned him, are all catfish in waiting. Take them at their word, and they'll fuck you over.

Her wording was more poetic, but Erik finds the gist is less misleading. The remnants of the dead aren't dignified. They aren't especially frightening either. They're just... assholes. Assholes with an annoying fondness for pranks.

Bagels, on the other hand, are just dough. They are exactly what they look like. Erik can actually eat his bagel and be better off for it.

It takes a while, but the spirit eventually figures out that Erik is hungry for calories and not the shape of a girl ten years too young for him. The awkward display drops, and Erik finds himself facing a more serious persona.

"My name is Raven," the spirit sighs. The young, round-cheeked blonde woman shifts into another form, equally naked and feminine, with blue skin and yellow eyes.

A mutant, then. Erik has found many of his kind among the restless dead.

"Erik Lehnsherr."

She nods. "I'm here because my brother is in danger, and you're the only one who can help him."

 _Brother?_ Erik thinks in surprise. Spirits never come to him about souls other than their own.

Perhaps catching his skepticism, Raven reaches up and unwinds something from her hair. She holds it in her cupped palms for a moment, eyes softening as she looks down at it, before she holds it out for him to look.

It's a locket. Gold possibly, though as it's only an echo of an object, not the real thing, his powers can only sense its presence, not its composition.

She flips it open, revealing two tiny pictures. Both are of a boy. The one on the left is the sort that gets dug up by family to embarrass someone: a boy, too young for school, dressed up like a duck. His cheeks are as fat as the pudgy legs sticking out of the costume, his expression frozen mid-grin. The other is of an older boy. Dressed in the perfectly pressed uniform of an expensive private school, his face is thinner, more somber, his eyes rimmed with dark circles.

"I didn't know him for more than a day," Raven says quietly, pulling her necklace back. "He caught me stealing from the kitchen, but he didn't get me in trouble. He said I could take whatever I wanted- even a place in his home. No more starving. No more being scared." She gives Erik a watery smile. "I did want to stay. I really, really did. But I couldn't- I didn't know how. So I left. After I stole these." She taps the locket. "If I couldn't have him in person, I decided I would have him like this. He's always with me now: the boy who saw the real me and didn't chase me out."

Interested despite himself, Erik nudges her along. "You mentioned being a spirit for twenty years."

She nods. "I died a few weeks after I met him. Hit by a car- dead on impact, so at least it didn't hurt too bad, right? But I couldn't leave him. I went back once, just to check on him, and when I saw what was happening- I couldn't help him when I was alive. Dead, though? With nothing else to do? I could repay him."

"And now you're here," Erik finishes. "I'm not sure what you think I can do. He must be nearly as old as I am."

"Check your email."

Frowning, Erik fishes his phone out of his pocket and searches through his mail. Junk, spam, junk, more junk...

Raven stops him with an incorporeal finger over his screen. "That's it."

Eyes narrowing- he can work a phone on his own- Erik blows out a sharp breath at the spirit. Temporarily dispersed, she hisses angrily as Erik taps on the message titled "Seeking Exorcist". The sender marked his name as Kurt Marko.

"That's Charles' step-dad," Raven's disembodied voice tells him.

"Wait a minute." Marko, Charles, the subject line... "Your brother isn't the kid who almost died in that clusterfuck of an exorcism, is he?"

 

**_xx_ **

 

"You know about that?" Raven asks, audibly surprised.

"Is there anyone who doesn't?" Erik shakes his head in disgust. "He was, what, fourteen? I remember my parents reading about it in the paper. The priest was in hot water about it. The whole diocese was in uproar for a long while, but I don't remember anything coming of it."

Pressure on his shoulder- strange, almost the shape of a touch, recognizable only because Erik is used to the feeling- gives away Raven's still-materializing location. "I don't know about the priest, but Kurt went to a lot of trouble to keep the family out of the papers. A _lot_ of trouble, if you get my drift?"

Xavier money is old money- the kind of old that came over before the Revolution, thrived with the Rockefellers, and still has connections across the globe. Erik knows it. Everybody knows it.

How much of that inheritance is left after Marko got his fingers in it, however, is the sort of crass speculation Erik's parents discouraged.

Naturally, Erik's day job involves working for the city's biggest gossip and devoted antagonist to all things involving Marko Industries, so he knows all about Marko's financial woes.

"He didn't learn his lesson the first time, did he?"

Raven sighs. "He didn't."

"Did he run out of priests?" Erik wonders aloud. "He must realize I'm Jewish."

"A friend of the family recommended you. You know Howard Stark?"

Of course it was the spirit of his boss' busybody father. Letting out a sigh, Erik says, "Let's see what the Starks signed me up for this time."


	23. brotherhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, magical knight au, inspired by but absolutely not a fanfic of the ellenium

When Charles returns to the castle, he expects a ruckus. Graymalkin has always been a hub, filled with tradespeople, plainfolk, and his brother knights. It’s a messy, loud, vibrant place. At the time, he thought it was terrible- there was no quiet, no time for rest- but after years of traveling, he’s just excited to be home.

Yet what meets him is silence. No pages are running about delivering messages or practicing their incantations. No horses are in the stable. No noble family’s banner is flying- not even the queen’s.

It’s eerie.

Even the barracks are empty. The lower levels have cobwebs in the corners and ants trailing through across the floor. All the rations have been eaten or taken, leaving only crumbs behind.

_What could have done this?_

Heart in his throat, Charles takes the stairs up a level.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when he finds Erik sitting at the long table.

Erik jumps to his feet, hand flying up to cast an incantation, before he recognizes Charles.

"Old friend!" he calls, the dark cast of his expression lifting. It takes him hardly three strides to cross from the table to where Charles is standing in the doorway, and as quickly as that, Charles watches the burst of exuberance fade. The man who holds his arm out to grasp Charles', his long fingers wrapping easily around the flesh below Charles' elbow as Charles returns the gesture, is even leaner than the one Charles left. Erik pauses there, looking Charles hard in the eye, as murmurs his part of the ritual greeting.

"Welcome home, Brother Knight. My heart aches with joy to see you returned to your home."

"My heart is glad to be among my brothers once again," Charles returns softly, taking the opportunity to look his friend over more closely. Dark circles ring Erik's eyes, and the non-regulation beard he'd taken so much pride in flaunting has been shaved off, leaving the hollows in his cheeks undisguised. His eyes are the same odd color, and they flicker with some unknowable emotion as Charles finishes the ritual. "The sight of you breathes life into my weary soul, my Brother."

The words have hardly left his mouth before Erik is letting go and stepping closer, both hands coming up to cup Charles' face. Charles recognizes the motion and mimics it.

 _"Peace upon you,"_ Erik says in his own tongue. It's one of the few phrases he's taught Charles.

 _"Peace upon you,"_ Charles returns, pleased by the smile Erik favors him with. Charles' pronunciation can't have gotten better during his wandering, but Erik seems happy just to have someone to complete the greeting.

Letting go, Erik gives him a nod and backs away. Raising his brows, he observes, "You grew a beard."

Charles raises a hand to his face without meaning to. “It was easier than shaving,” he admits with a faint laugh. “I didn’t always have a mirror on hand.”

“It looks good.”

There it is, that look in Erik’s eyes that makes heat flare in Charles’ belly. It’s been more than ten years since Charles saw Erik; he had thought this would disappear. Obviously he was wrong, because his stomach is in knots, and Erik is watching him sharply.

“What happened here?” Charles rasps. The sooner they move on, the better. “Where is everyone?”

A muscle in Erik’s jaw twitches. “Schmidt,” he spits, and the world drops out from under Charles’ feet.


	24. raw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, hell's kitchen au

The bus has been humming along through L.A. for a few minutes when Raven gets the courage to turn to the girl next to her.

"I can't believe this is really happening," she says, a touch too loud.

Luckily, the girl gives her a sympathetic smile and nods. "It all feels like a dream." She holds out a hand. "I'm Angel."

"Raven," Raven says, shaking her hand.

The others start introducing themselves. Everybody is confident that the teams will be split into men versus women, but it's nice to get to know each other anyway. The bus quickly goes from hushed to loud as Raven and her competitors move into the trash talking and speculation.

"So, we all know Lehnsherr is single, right?" one of the other girls asks.

"Come on," a guy- Raven thinks his name is Sean- drawls. "No way Lehnsherr doesn't have a piece on the DL."

Others chime in with their own thoughts. Speculation about Chef is rampant. He's got three kids with two women, neither of whom is married to him now, but as far as the internet is concerned, that just makes him the cooking world's most desirable dad. Of course, there are always the rumors. He's gay. He hates sex. He's addicted to sex. He's got something going on with Sous Chef Emma. He's got something going on with Sous Chef Azazel. Hell, some people even think he and Charles are together.

As if the maître'd isn't tired of dealing with Chef barking at him all the time at work. Poor Charles is always getting teased and poked by Chef. One season, Charles almost quit- but that had more to do with the way that table of customers was harassing him. It was so bad that Chef, for the only time in fifteen seasons, left the kitchen mid-service and faced down the man who pointed at Charles' cane and suggested a less crippled man would be doing a better job.

Raven has always been more of a fan of Chef than Charles, but she had to admit, the way Charles kept his cool and talked both Chef and the customer down had been incredible.

She's still thinking about Charles and Chef when the bus comes to a stop outside the big HK sign. The door opens, and she and Angel follow the others outside into the blistering sunlight.

The competition has begun.

 

**_xx_ **

 

"Don't be late," Erik warned when Charles saw him this morning, fussing over the chairs.

"Don't be an ass," Charles shot back. This will be their sixteenth season opener, and he has yet to be late for a single one. "And don't fall off that tight rope either. I know you like to make big entrances, but if you die, I'll need to find a new job."

Erik laughed him off as he always does before he ran off to do who knows what in preparation for his big entrance. Leaning lightly on his cane as he waits, Charles rolls his eyes. Erik's excitement is infectious, though, and he finds himself having to bite back a smile. The first day is an easy day. Just get the contestants in, hurry them into Erik's waiting arms, take a seat among the crowd to watch the signature dishes, then swoop back in for punishment.

He doesn't have to wait a terribly long time before the bus pulls into the car park. Some years, he has spent hours waiting outside in the sun, unable to sit lest the camera crew need a certain shot of him.

This group, he decides as the mutants file off the bus, is going to be particularly rowdy. There are a number of them with physical mutations- Charles' chest pangs at the thought of the career he gave up. He loves the sciences, yes, and maybe he will return one day. But not now. Not yet. Not while Erik still needs him.

One of the girls, her skin a bright blue, stops suddenly and points at him. "Charles!" she screams, and the group turns toward him as one.

Smiling brightly, Charles descends the stairs. "Welcome to Hell's Kitchen," he says, pouring on the charm. "Follow me. Erik is waiting."

 

**_xx_ **

 

Erik takes one look at the protein and sighs. "You weren't kidding," he groans, looking up from the plate and into the waiting eyes of the latest cook to drop an abomination in from of him. "You really did stuff a hen with zucchini."

"Yes, Chef," the young man says, nodding eagerly.

He lets the audience laugh, then shakes his head. "Let's see how it is, then." He cuts into the unfortunate bird and watches a mystery sauce come pouring out. "Stuffing?" he asks, more to delay the inevitable than actual curiosity.

Red-faced, the cook nods quickly. "It's a little watery still."

"A little watery?" Erik echoes. He dips his fork into the mess, scoops it up, and lets it dribble back onto the plate. The boy- he can't be older than twenty-five- manages to turn an even brighter shade of red.

"It's undercooked," Erik says after cutting into the unfortunate bird and examining what little meat escaped the "stuffing". "This isn't a little pink. This is rip roaring raw. You can almost hear it squawking. One out of five."

The boy ducks his head and takes the score without argument, so Erik moves onto his opponent, a girl no older than the boy, who has a beautiful, rustic-looking dish.

"Seafood paella," she says as she pushes the bowl closer. "My mama's recipe."

"It looks beautiful," Erik allows, "but let's see how it tastes."

He goes for the broth, and even before he tastes it, he can smell the spices. It puts him on guard, but the actual taste is smooth and rich. "That dish," he says as he sets his spoon down, "is like your name: heavenly. The best one so far. Five out of five for Angel."

Her eyes go wide, and the girl bounces on the balls of her feet, her iridescent wings fluttering brightly behind her. "Thank you, Chef!"

"Back in line, both of you," Erik says, shooing them away to make room for the next pair. "Next I want to see dishes from Armando and Ilyana."

 

**_xx_ **

 

The women win the morning's challenge, so Charles gets to spend the afternoon on a yacht with a group of very friendly young women. They haven't been doing well on the challenges so far- this is their only win after losing the first four challenges- and they're all clamoring to grab drinks and sit in the comfortable chairs on the top deck. They flirt with him a little, and Charles flirts a little back.

Erik would grumble and tell him not to be a dirty old man if he were here. But he isn't here, and most of the women's team is Charles' age.

He's getting comfortable on his chair with a club soda when one of the girls in the pool splashes over.

"Hey, Charles?"

"Yes, Jean?"

"How did you come to be Chef's maître'd?"

It's asked by a mind that has nothing but simple curiosity written on it, so while the question initially makes him bristle, Charles smiles and indulges Jean- and the rest of her team, who have noticeably gone quiet.

"Erik and I met years ago," he begins. "Long before he was Chef, Erik worked at a country club. You know this already, though, don't you?" Six heads nod affirmatively. "Well, what you may not know is that I worked there at the same time. I saw Erik slave over every dish. I saw him experiment in his off hours. It was like watching magic. He would create the most exquisite things, and he always let anyone who was around have a taste."

He leaves out the fact that the country club belonged to a family that was bitter rivals with his own, doesn't mention the fact that he was only there to rebel and earn money of his own for the greater rebellion of revealing that he was enrolled in medicine rather than business. So, too, does he keep mum about the chef Erik worked for being a brute who took advantage of Erik's lack of means to corner him into working too many shifts. Erik is upfront about his family being poor; what he does not share are the indignities he suffered to claw himself into a better life.

"As you can imagine," he says instead, "I made sure I was always around when Erik Lehnsherr was working." He gets the expected laugh. The alcohol and the thrill of being outside, having fun, are working their magic; the women are happy to laugh with him. This is a fun story for them, a peek behind the curtain, and Charles is happy to indulge them.

"Erik didn't take long to identify a familiar face, so of course he enlisted me as his taste tester- I got quite heavy that summer from eating all his creations-" Another titter goes up, "-but that's beside the point."

"What is the point?" Angel asks.

"That I knew," Charles says firmly. "I knew from the moment I saw him that Erik was going places, and I wanted to be there with him. I made him promise me that if he ever left the club he would tell me so I could go with him. I spent a long time being a server in the roughest, grungiest places so I could do that, but I never regretted it."

Here, too, are gaps in the story: Erik's disbelief and eventual capitulation, Charles' diagnosis, their falling out in Paris, Charles' training as a sommelier, their reunion in Miami. So much of their story will never be told. None of these bright-eyed cooks will ever know how far Charles pushed himself to be Erik's right hand, how much he lost. Hopefully, neither will Erik.

A hush has fallen over the women, and for an awful moment, Charles wonder if he's accidentally projected. Then Kitty- one of Erik's favorites- turns big, round eyes on him and asks, sweet as can be, "He must pay you really well, then, right?"

And Charles finds himself laughing along with the women, unashamed and victorious. Erik's little group of apprentices may have a long, hard road ahead of them, but Charles is already there. He has everything there is to have, including the friendship of one of the world's greatest chefs. What more could he want?

 

**_xx_ **

 

The service is a rough one. Steak night, despite its simplicity, is always hard on the chefs. The women start out shakily- a couple of risottos aren't up to par, one comes back in from the dining room- but find a rhythm in time for the main course. It isn't perfect, but they do feed their tables. The men's team on the other hand...

It's chaos. They're screaming at each other, the kitchen keeps sending up smoke, and nothing is leaving the kitchen. Charles knows what's coming long before it happens.

"Get the fuck out!" Erik shouts, the clanging of metal indicating he's either kicked or thrown something.

A moment later, a sorry-looking Armando emerges. He steals through the dining room toward the entrance, and Charles knows he has to act quickly. Dodging from the sidelines after Armando is exhausting, but Charles manages to get to him before he reaches the door.

"I'm done," Armando tells him.

"You're not."

"I really, really am." There are tears in his eyes. "I can't hack it."

Stepping forward, Charles puts a hand on his shoulder. "Armando, I have seen you cook since the very first round. You _can_ do this. I've seen you do it. Be confident, young man."

"I was basting a fillet."

Ah. "That's not good, but it isn't the end. Not if you fight back."

Armando cocks his head. "You really think I can do this, don't you?"

"I know you can. And Chef would not have kept you here this long if he did not believe it, too. Now, go. Shoo! Back where you belong."

Armando does go back. Erik shouts at him some more, but Armando doesn't shrink from it. Instead, he straightens his back and gets back on the line.

Charles doesn't go long to enjoy the sight. One table is getting aggressive with their server, and Charles has to intervene before the poor girl has a panic attack.

The problem is their food isn't hot enough, which Charles can sympathize with, and he is nothing but gracious as he instructs their server to help him collect the food and bring it back to Erik.

"He won't be mad, will he?" she asks as they make their way to the kitchen.

"Of course he will be mad- but not at you," Charles soothes. "Unless you stood around, picking your nose instead of delivering the food?"

"Of course not!"

"Then you have nothing to fear."

The table is red, and Erik is predictably unhappy. This year's sous chef, Emma, narrows her eyes and turns to face her brigade with all the coldness of her surname.

"Tell them we'll refire their order urgently," Erik snaps when he comes back to the pass after chewing the women out.

"Yes, Chef."

"And, Charles?"

"Yes, Chef?"

"Don't think I don't know you had a hand in Armando returning."

Raising his brows, Charles shrugs. "I don't know what you're referring to, Chef."

 _Yeah, right._ "Get out of my pass." Erik waves him away, and Charles makes to leave, only to trip over the step. "Don't trip, you ass," Erik adds, sounding more annoyed than upset.

Charles ignores him. Now is not the time to point out that he is not the one who once ran face-first into the clear glass doors to the kitchen.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Erik hates eliminations. Charles knows this even if no one else does. It always gets to Erik, having to crush someone's dream. You wouldn't know it from looking at him or touching his mind, but he aches every time someone pleads their case to stay and is told no.

"He was homeless," Erik says, voice hoarse. He's sitting on the top step outside Hell's Kitchen. Charles settles down beside him. "It wasn't your fault," he says, as he always does. "They know they might lose."

"Still-"

"Your heart is too soft," Charles chides. "Why don't you quit this and go back to New York with me? You were so much happier then."

"I can give them more this way," Erik says, dropping his head onto Charles' shoulder. "A career, some time in the spotlight to boost their resumes..."

This is the crux of the problem. Erik loves mutants more than he loves himself. For all the screaming and theatrics, Erik simply wants mutants to be cared for, and if he has to be unhappy to accomplish that, then so be it.

Charles puts his arm around Erik's shoulders. "Think about your children," he reminds him. "They need you to be well, old friend."

"And you?" Erik asks.

"I'm highly employable," Charles says brightly. "I could get a job working anywhere I wanted. I hear Bobby Flay is looking for someone experienced to run the front of a new restaurant."

Erik jerks upright. "Not Flay. Anyone but Flay."

"The pay would be good, though."

_"Charles."_

Charles shakes his head. "You know I don't give a damn about Bobby Fucking Flay. Just... take care of yourself, will you?"

This is Erik's cue to laugh him off. Instead, Erik slumps to the side and lays his head back on Charles' shoulder. "I want you by my side."

Charles pats one of his friend's knobby knees. "You have me."

 

**_xx_ **

 

Armando beats Raven. It's tight, and Erik spends a long time in his office, thinking everything over. Raven is a fine cook, her palette is refined, and she is creative. But Armando, once he settled into himself, showed he could _lead_. Where Raven had to shout and fight to get her brigade's attention, Armando already had it. He balanced careful praise with a vigor that had Erik itching to jump back on the line. With Azazel as his sous chef, his side churned out beautiful dish after beautiful dish.

In the party that follows the reveal, Erik goes around talking to the losers. Raven is taking comfort in Angel, her friend and ferocious chef in her own right. If it hadn't been for that burn, she might have been the one to challenge Armando. Kitty and Sean are dancing with Ilyana, all of them laughing and tripping over each other. Ororo and Rogue are talking with Emma. Azazel has Janos in a headlock. Armando has his arm around the shoulders of Alex, who went out after getting the purple jacket. Too much a line cook, Erik had known. Alex was solid in a brigade, but he wasn't born to lead one. Armando spots Erik and throws him a lazy salute, which Erik returns.

Finally, on his third turn around the room, Erik finds Charles leaning against a wall.

"Found you," he says happily.

Charles raises his brows. "My cane has a metal cap. What took you so long, huh?"

"I was practicing finding you without my gift."

"You're not very good at it."

"Thus the practicing," Erik points out.

Charles nods. "Thus the practicing," he echoes. Erik runs his eyes over him. Charles looks good. His hair isn't slicked back for once, the length slightly longer than Charles likes. His face is alight, though the only thing in his hand is a soda. He isn't swaying, and his suit is carefully pressed. Even now, when he's had time to shower, his shoes are still shined.

Erik can't help but flashback to when he and Charles were reunited in Miami. His friend was a mess: too thin, unsteady, reeking like a brewery. He threw a sloppy punch at Erik, which Erik deftly dodged. Then he folded over, and he was too small. Far too small to be the rich boy who swaggered into the kitchen and flirted his way into trying all Erik's attempts at making his own food.

If Erik had known that all Charles wanted was a purpose, to be somewhere he knew he belonged, he never would have forced Charles out of the restaurant.

Charles looks better now. If Erik hadn't seen it firsthand, he would never have guessed how far Charles sank. But he did see it, and he can't forget it.

"Want a sip?"

Erik blinks, startled by the sound of Charles' voice. He glances up from his accidental study of Charles' shoes and into the wry expression on his friend's face.

Without anything better to do, Erik takes Charles' glass and skulls the soda.

"I don't know why I didn't see that coming," Charles says when Erik hands him the glass.

"You should have, old friend," Erik says easily. Yet the words linger on his tongue, sharp and clear, and he wishes, as he always does, that it were a different endearment. "Come on. Let's get you a refill."

They end up sitting on the floor against a wall where they can watch the main party without getting sucked into it. Charles has his refill, and Erik has a flute of champagne. They're sitting too close; Charles is mashed against his side so Erik has to put an arm around his shoulders.

It's comfortable and good, and Charles is wearing that stupidly expensive cologne Erik gave him for his birthday.

"You smell nice."

"Thank you. I suppose I can admit you have good taste."

"A ringing endorsement."

"Don't be a dick."

"Yes, Charles."

They lapse into silence, but it's good silence. Comfortable silence. The sort of silence Erik's parents used to have.

Charles sneakily threads his fingers through Erik's hair and gives his head a scratch. After a day like today, when the pans have been sizzling and Erik has been slamming pots, his gift is wound up tight, and the gentle prodding of Charles' fingers feels like heaven. He can't help but close his eyes and lean into the touch.

The scratching goes on long enough that Erik begins to doze off, only for Charles' voice to

"Hey, Erik?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

Erik nods in understanding. Charles loves him. Of course he does.

"Is that your reaction?" Charles asks, voice strangled. "You're just going to sit there and nod?"

Erik nods again. "I've loved you since I was twenty-two."

"Oh, that's- You have? Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm your boss," Erik says with a sigh.

"Nominally."

"Charles..."

"Yes, yes, I see your point." Charles doesn't stop scratching, so Erik doesn't bother opening his eyes. There's more coming; he wants to enjoy the touch while it lasts. "Twenty-two?" Charles repeats.

"Twenty-two."

"Erik, you were twenty-two when we met."

"Sounds right."

"You're thirty-nine now."

"I am."

"You're telling me you sat on this for seventeen years." Charles' voice is rising, and that's how Erik knows it's time.

Reluctantly pulling away, Erik opens his eyes and looks over Charles' disbelieving face.

"It took me a while to figure it out," he says, scratching at his jaw. "So it's closer to ten years."

"You're incredible."

"Why does that not sound like a compliment?"

"Because I'm not sure it is one," Charles says tartly. "God, seventeen years..."

Erik cocks his head. "I'm still your boss."

"Erik Lehnsherr, I have been by your side for nearly twenty years. Either you kiss me right now, or I will smack your thick head with my damn cane."

It's an awkward kiss. The angle isn't right, and Charles clearly isn't expecting Erik to take the dare. It hardly lasts more than a second. But as he pulls away, Erik can feel himself smiling.

Charles blinks stupidly for a long moment. "You kissed me."

"I did."

"Do it again."

Erik does. In front of all the cameras and all the contestants. With the stupid credits music playing in the background. This time, Charles kisses him back, and it's good. It's the best. As good as Erik had dared to hope. Better.

Charles cups his cheek in his palms, and Erik shuffles closer, moving over into Charles' lap.

There's going to be hell later, but for the moment, Erik doesn't have to think about producers and ratings. He finally has what he's been hungry for.


	25. brotherhood, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, same magical knights au as chapter 23, also absolutely not a fanfic of _the ellenium_

The pages are gathered around the fire, discussing ways of figuring out where Schmidt went when, inevitably, the topic of necromancy comes up. Surrounded as they are by the ruins of one of their enemy's raids, it was only a matter of time before the children's minds wandered toward making use of the dead. Charles is content to sit opposite them and let their words wash over him at first as he stirs the soup. Then he hears Alex suggest they use Erik as the incantation’s anchor.

"Oh, no," he breaks. "Even if I agreed to let you try this- which I’m not- Erik would assuredly not be taking part."

Alex pauses. "Why not? He's the strongest. If we raised a malignant spirit, surely the one to go toe to toe with it should be him. I mean, the guy exorcised a devil’s shade on his own. I’m sure he could handle an unhappy human spirit until we put it down."

Charles waves his free hand. "Of course he could. And he would, if we asked him to. Which we won't."

Sean frowns. "Why not?"

"Because, Sean," Charles says, fighting the urge to snap, "raising the dead requires a deep form of incantation."

"We've all seen Erik incant, Charles,” Raven says, shaking her head. “He used to tutor pages in it when they fell behind. And he's definitely strong enough to handle the old style."

"Tutoring pages is an endeavor that would result in better prepared knights, would it not? It’s a good thing to do." Charles takes a deep breath. "He may not go out of his way to bandy it about, but you’ll recall that Erik is a desertman, yes? I know your professors taught you that desert magic has different rules from our mountain magic. Raising the dead just to ask a question is not a profanity for us, but to Erik’s people, all necromancy is an abomination."

"It's not as if we're actually bringing them back, though," Raven protests.

Charles sighs. "That isn't the point."

"So what is?"

"The inhumanity," Erik explains smoothly, materializing behind Charles and settling on the ground beside him. The pages startle, but Charles felt the sharp edge of Erik’s magic minutes ago. Putting his hands up to the flames, Erik continues, "The opinion of the Most High is clear: the dead are to be treated with compassion. That means we do not disturb them by yanking them between worlds." He tips his head toward the moon, thinking hard for a moment. “That and contorting the natural order requires the profanity of playing god. It would save us a great deal of time, however…”

“Stop that,” Charles says sharply. He knows Erik doesn’t want to resort to necromancy- knows that if his friend ever were to raise a spirit, it would crush something old and fragile and absolutely vital to Erik. Softening, he adds, “You keep your rules for a reason. If the pages can’t learn to accept the rules of other realms, they’ll never become knights.”

Erik nods, and the group lapses into silence. Charles can tell their young companions aren't convinced, but it doesn't matter. Erik won't be raising the dead if Charles has anything to say about it, especially not spirits who were dispatched as cruelly as the villagers were. They will have to find another way to catch Schmidt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may have noticed i've been updating this thing more frequently. i'm getting a new phone which sadly isn't compatible with my usual writing app, so i've just discovered a bunch of drafts which i've decided to clean up and upload here.
> 
> oh, and a big ole thank you to everybody who's left comments (and kudos!), esp. y'all who've asked about seeing more of certain fics. i'm working on those, too!


	26. pilikia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t, hawaii five-0 au

**2016**

The ship explodes.

In a thundering, upward thrust of orange and yellow flames, a tunnel of fire licking at the sky, what once was a luxury yacht scatters across the bay. Chunks of the ship flung apart by the explosion land on the water's surface, just buoyant enough to fuel their own fires. The bright New York sky, streaked with a fiery sunset of its own, is reflected in the restless waves.

Looking on from the beach, Charles observes the progress of the destruction and thinks mildly, _Six out of ten_.

His partner, he suspects, would give it an eight. But then, Erik is always inordinately pleased with the results of his bouts of unnecessary carnage.

They'll argue over it later. Not about the ranking- the Xavier Scale remains a private ranking system, never to be shared with men like the one currently paddling back to Charles like a Retriever with a dead bird- which Erik would insist went in his favor if he knew, but about laws and necessary violence and the fact that Charles found yet another switchblade in his car today. It was in the front seat, though, so at least it was out of Raven’s reach.

As a happy Erik is a mildly less destructive one, Charles will be forced to concede the point.

 

**2015**

The caravan rattles down the empty road, its passengers waiting restlessly for the journey to come to its end. In the pre-dawn light, Berlin is little more than a vague glow in the distance. A chopper is waiting for them just outside the city limits, with room for the four men sat in the back of the second car from the front.

Erik Lehnsherr, officially Lieutenant-Commander Lehnsherr of the Navy SEALs, is ready for this mission to be over yesterday. He doesn’t trust the bored look on Quested’s face, and he won’t be able to relax until the man is behind bars back in the States.

His cell phone vibrating breaks the silence.

"Hello, Lehnsherr," says the man on the other end of the line, his accent thickly Russian and immediately familiar. The operative to Erik’s left stiffens, reacting to Erik’s own ramrod posture.

Across from Erik, sandwiched between two burly SEALs, Quested lifts his brows.

Someday, in a week or a month or longer, Erik will think of the scant moments between Azazel’s call and the ambush and shake off the grief shrouding him and replace it with vicious determination. The men he loses on the dark road in pre-dawn Germany, the nightmares he gains in their places, the memories of killing Janos before he could escape under cover of the airstrike, will bring him to something better, something he hasn't had in a long, terrifying time. He won’t know it right away- will, in fact, have to wait nearly a month before he catches the first glimmer of something good. But it will come.

In the moment, though, he doesn't know that. What he does know is this: his mother's voice, tinny through the phone's speaker, telling him to be calm, it's all right; then Azazel demanding the release of his partner, a man lying dead at Erik's hand not ten feet away; shouting between Edie and Azazel as Erik fails to put Janos on the line; and, loudest of all, the sound of a gunshot.

Someday, Erik will look back and know, logically, that the moment Hellfire figured out his name, his family was at risk. Edie was never going to live. Even if Janos hadn't caught a bullet, she would have.

That day is a long time coming, though, and Erik has other concerns.

 

**_xx_ **

 

His sister leaves him five messages in the first twenty-four hours. Erik mostly listens to them all, just in case, but they all boil down to the same message: _Mame_ died, hurry up and come home for the funeral, don't you dare make me do this myself. She talks too fast and sounds more tired than sad, and that, more than familial duty and the Navy's mandatory suggestion of time off, brings him back to the place he used to call home.

That, and the need to check on the police’s investigation.

He's thinking about that during the funeral, how strange it's going to be seeing the garish yellow tape around his childhood home and how badly the crime scene techs will have fumbled the evidence, when the service finally ends. Edie Lehnsherr has been laid to rest beside her husband, their son is sweating through his dress uniform, and their daughter is nowhere to be seen. Typical Ruth: she told Erik off for not wanting to come and potentially leaving her to face the crowd of people neither of them had seen in years, then didn't bother showing up herself.

Another well-wisher is clasping his hand, but all Erik can manage is a nod. The woman gives him a look as sharp as her pantsuit; it's expensive, custom tailored, and immaculately white despite mud. Edie Lehnsherr owned one nice thing, her wedding dress, and that was worth less than this woman's shoes.

Throat burning- how would his mother know someone like this?- Erik lets himself accept what he already knew half a world away. He never should have come. He doesn't know these people any more than he knew his parents.

The best he can do is extract himself from this place and get to the crime scene before the locals make an even bigger mess.

"-Lehnsherr?"

Startling, Erik mentally shakes himself back into the present. The woman in the suit is still standing in front of him. Instead of the sharp look she had before, she's watching him with some other emotion, something a lot like anticipation.

The hair at the back of his neck prickles. Every instinct is clamoring to tell him the same thing. _Get out._ Instead, Erik tells his heart to settle down. He keeps his expression neutral, his tone curious, as he tips his head.

"Pardon?"

The woman smiles pleasantly. "I asked if you'll be staying here long, Lieutenant-Commander."

"I won't." The answer only makes her smile grow. "Is there something funny, ma'am?"

"Not at all. Just, you really don't recognize me, do you? No, no, don't make that face. My name is Emma Frost, and as the governor of this state, I have a proposition for you."


End file.
